About

Nicholas Koo is a Korean-American conductor currently serving multiple orchestras across the United States, including the Minnesota Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, and Utah Symphony/Utah Opera. He made his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in their MusicNOW series, conducting works by Jimmy López. In 2024, he debuted with the Minnesota Orchestra and previously conducted the Colorado Symphony Orchestra during their regular season. This past year, Nicholas was highlighted as an emerging conductor, conducting the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra during their Leonard Slatkin 80th Birthday Celebration.

Throughout his career, Nicholas has assisted renowned conductors such as Donald Runnicles, Fabien Gabel, and Marin Alsop, and has worked with distinguished soloists including Emanuel Ax, Hélène Grimaud, Paul Huang, Joyce Yang, and Jörgen van Rijen of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In 2024, Nicholas conducted the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in workshop with renowned violinist, Hilary Hahn featuring Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor.

Nicholas Koo was selected by the Solti Foundation U.S. as a 2023 recipient of the prestigious Career Assistance Award for young conductors and, in 2024 was awarded the Elizabeth Buccheri Solti Opera Residency. In December 2022, he was hand-picked from over 300 global applicants to be an active conductor at the Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy in Ravenna, Italy. There, he studied and worked alongside Maestro Muti in a series of rehearsals and masterclasses, exploring Verdi’s Messa da Requiem and performing the work in the historic Teatro Comunale Alighieri.

BIO

“The performance by CSO associate concertmaster Stephanie Jeong and cellist Karen Basrak with a 14-member string group efficiently led by Nicholas Koo, was everything a composer could want.”
Chicago Classical Review

In 2023, Nicholas was invited to serve as assistant conductor for the Peninsula Music Festival as the Karen Smuda Emerging Conductor and returned in 2024 as the festival’s assistant conductor. He joined the artist roster of Festival Mozaic as the festival's first assistant conductor in 2022 and again in 2024, where he collaborated with the San Luis Obispo Movement Arts Collective to produce and lead family concerts of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals that featured young, local ballet talent. Under the mentorship of conductor Scott Yoo, Nicholas has frequently conducted at the Colorado College Summer Music Festival as the recipient of the Perotti-Holmes endowed fellowship.

In partnership with PBS, he was featured leading the CCSMF Orchestra in the acclaimed television series Now Hear This, conducting film scores by Aaron Copland alongside original cinematography. A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Nicholas also served as music director for the Atlantic Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble and assistant conductor of the Atlantic Music Festival Symphony Orchestra, where he premiered over 20 new works for chamber and full orchestra.

Off the podium, Nicholas collaborates with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association in artistic media, where he leverages his conducting expertise to coordinate score calls for various recording projects.

“…a natural physical affinity for gesture…”

Vance George

San Francisco Symphony Chorus Director Emeritus

In the Chicago area, Nicholas Koo received continued mentorship under Riccardo Muti during the Maestro’s final seasons with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He is a recipient of Northwestern University’s Bienen Eckstein Scholarship, earning his master’s degree in conducting in 2018 and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 2022 as the final student of Victor Yampolsky. His dissertation culminated in the U.S. premiere of a new arrangement of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.

During his time at Northwestern, Nicholas served as assistant conductor with the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra, accompanying the ensemble on its inaugural international tour to China in 2018 which featured works by Gustav Mahler and Leonard Bernstein. He also led a production of Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus with the Northwestern University Opera Company, as well as premieres of contemporary student operas. Additionally, Nicholas assisted the Northwestern Contemporary Music Ensemble under Alan Pierson, where he played a key role in developing innovative, cloud-based music-making techniques during the COVID pandemic.

Originally from the Bay Area, California, Nicholas earned undergraduate degrees in molecular cell biology and music from the University of California, Berkeley. There, he began his conducting studies with David Milnes and studied choral conducting with Vance George and Marika Kuzma. A two-time recipient of the Alfred Hertz Memorial Traveling Scholarship, Nicholas has participated in masterclasses with notable figures such as Esa-Pekka Salonen and Gustavo Dudamel. His mentors include Riccardo Muti, Leonard Slatkin, Fabien Gabel, Scott Yoo, and Rune Bergmann.