If a Beethoven concert is not completely sold out, it is not the fault of Beethoven!

Kent Nagano © OCNE

Spain and the Spanish-speaking world eagerly await maestro Kent Nagano, who in September 2026 will take up the position of principal conductor and artistic director of the Spanish National Orchestra and Choir (OCNE) in Madrid for five years. Nagano has just bid farewell to the Hamburg audience with ovations after a decade as Principal Conductor of the Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra and General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera, bringing an era to a close.

A few weeks ago, before embarking on a tour of Japan, Nagano was taking Richard Wagner's ‘Siegfried. Second Day of The Ring of the Nibelung’ in concert version to the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland) with the Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln, as part of his ‘The Wagner Cycles’ series in cooperation with the Dresden Music Festival.

Kent Nagano. © 2025 by Tat Keng, TEY.

Looking ahead, the conductor has several projects in mind and considers it important in these times to explore emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), in a creative collaboration, something he also wants to share with the OCNE during his next term. Maestro Kent Nagano was kind enough to grant a written interview via email to Mundoclasico.com on various current topics, and these are his exclusive statements:

On his upcoming role as conductor of the Spanish National Orchestra and Choir (OCNE)

Juan Carlos Tellechea: Maestro, the Spanish National Orchestra has a very distinctive sound, with rich brass and warm strings. How would you define it?

Kent Nagano: from my perspective the sound which an orchestra has is a metaphor for its community and an existential reflection of a society - past, present and future.The OCNE’s sound includes shades of dark/light, shadows/transparency, textures, temperatures, shifting density, colour and passion - a mirror of Madrid and Spain's unique, natural geography, its architecture, and long cultural history.

What adjustments do you plan to make to the orchestral arrangement or sound balance to preserve or improve that sound?

Again from my perspective, there does not a sound which an orchestra SHOULD have.The OCNE is a unique ensemble reflecting a historical tradition of international importance. My role would be to concretise and focus the orchestra’s character, relevance, actuality and aid its evolution.

How does the acoustics of the National Auditorium in Madrid influence the way you conduct the orchestra compared to other venues such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, or the Montreal Opera?

Madrid is very fortunate to have a performance venue which boasts one of the world’s exceptional acoustics. A concert hall is a musical instrument whose acoustic and ambience characteristics are used by a musical ensemble as extensions of their individual and collective “voice”. In all venues: blending of colour, texture, and balance of these “voices" are essential for the effective communication of content and I very much look forward to further discovering the attributes of this special concert hall.

About the National Choir

The Spanish National Choir is known for its versatility, from Haydn's The Creation to contemporary works. How will you work with them to maintain or improve that technical and expressive flexibility?

The Spanish National Choir is one of the world’s most refined and gifted choral ensembles. Together we have collaborated in such a wide spectrum of repertoire from Haydn to Henze, Faure and Messiaen. Our instrumental music has an inseparable relationship with the human voice. I enthusiastic look forward to collaborating and exploring other eras and corners of the great vocal/choral repertoire with this exceptional ensemble from medieval through to and including our contemporary times.

In addition to your work with the Spanish National Orchestra and Choir (OCNE), is there any place, tradition, or aspect of Spanish culture that has influenced your musical vision?”

Like most of the international community I have been profoundly moved, influenced and inspired by the great Spanish literature, theatre arts, visual arts, and dance traditions. These are examples of Spanish culture’s presence and influence upon the evolution of civilisation since its beginning.

Have you incorporated any elements of Spanish orchestral conducting (such as the style of previous OCNE Maestros) into your own technique?

KN: when playing in an orchestral ensemble, at least for me, one is highly sensitive toward a certain truth. Any artificiality, imitative or forced characterisation stands out as unnatural. In this sense I have found it best for a conductor of an ensemble to be respectful through simply and honestly being oneself. If not, there is a risk the collaboration will not reflect sincerity or gravitas.

The Intersection of Culture and Interpretation

Maestro, your upbringing encompassed both Japanese and Western traditions. Beyond the broad influence on your worldview, could you describe a specific instance or a particular piece of music where you felt this dual cultural perspective directly informed a unique interpretive choice, perhaps in phrasing, balance, or even the emotional landscape you sought to evoke, that might differ from a conductor solely rooted in one tradition?

As a 3rd generation American descendant of Japanese ancestors who immigrated to the USA in the 1890’s, I am wholly Western in terms of formal education and social upbringing. Nevertheless, yes, because of the influence of my immigrant grandparents who kept many of their conservative traditions and celebrated them with us as children I have felt a certain duality. This occurs particularly when I am on tour in Japan and in Asia in general: China, Korea, and Taiwan - or when I collaborate with Japanese and Asian composers. There are certain aesthetic sensitivities of nuance, courtesy,  subtle agogic  stresses in articulation, pulse-rhythmic awareness in social communication, and conceptual dimensions which, whilst different from Western, feel familiar and strangely natural. The awareness arrives like a distant memory of a former life and is present not only in music making but perhaps especially within social settings. As you might imagine it can be very strange to have a Japanese composer inform me that my performance sounds convincingly Japanese when my entire consciousness has been formed in the West.

You've spoken about the collaborative challenges in opera, particularly when theatrical and musical priorities diverge. Beyond the technical aspects, what is the most personally demanding or emotionally taxing collaborative hurdle you've faced in bringing a complex new work, or even a challenging traditional piece, to the stage?

It would be important to remember that while ease, comfort and enjoyment may be desirable, they are not necessarily what artistic process is meant to be or that which art represents.

Achieving or reaching certain levels of qualitative excellence requires an exceptional investment of focus, energy, time and exhaustive effort which is often uneasy, uncomfortable, and un-amusing. It is an exercise which demands complete engagement in which unwavering concentration is a requisite.

In my experience, when the quality of a genre reaches a certain level of refinement and perfection, labels or categories no longer apply. We would consider this an artistic level. 

 The most difficult collaborative experiences for me have been when the quality of work is simply not at a level the composer’s masterwork composition requires. This can be for any number of reasons; lack of preparation, research, conceptual depth, time, ability. Achieving a superior quality level also does not mean that all collaborators come from the same background. In fact, some of the most successful operatic experiences have been collaborations between musicians and non musicians but alway involving great artists in their respective fields.

In my experience, these parameters apply throughout the entire master repertoire from traditional to contemporary.

How do you navigate those moments where artistic visions fundamentally clash, and what strategies do you employ to maintain cohesion and respect within the ensemble?

In all professions the resolution of conflict begins with dialogue and establishing common ground.

In an era where music is increasingly consumed digitally, and you've noted the risk of it being perceived merely as 'information,' how has your personal definition or pursuit of 'superior quality' in performance evolved?

It would be important to recall that fundamentally music is not digital. The music people consume digitally is a ‘representation’ of music - a recording. Music exists in a partitura and comes to life in a live performance - hence we refer to music a one of “the performing arts” along with dance and dramatic theatre. These are arts which are different from say, the visual or literary arts. When we record the music it is a sort of “picture” or “portrait” which represents music - but it is not music itself.

Are there specific aspects of musical quality that you find particularly challenging to convey or preserve in a digitized format, and what innovative approaches, if any, are you exploring to bridge that gap for contemporary audiences?

For me the digitalised format is wonderful in that it brings extraordinary opportunities for sharing a performance.

If we perform a concert to 3 consecutive sold-out houses, we might reach 8000-12,000 persons who have attended, pending the size of the venue. But with digital media extension we suddenly can reach a public of hundreds of thousands and beyond, stretching over country and continental boundaries and distances of countless kilometres.

The challenge is to understand and master the media format such that an artistic performance does not become primarily an entertainment form. The product must contain and access that which is beyond the normal 3 dimensions of daily life. Art communicates the 4th, 5th dimensions of humanism and beyond, those dimensions which communicate content, that which enriches and fulfills lives. This implies collaborating with master directors, and translation between one medium to another - all of which requires depth of preparation, technical expertise and exceptional aesthetic sensitivity. The objective is to communicate an experience as close as possible to that of a live performance.

The "Forensic Work" of Historical Performance and Unfinished Projects

Your 'Wagner Cycles/Readings' project involves an incredibly detailed, almost forensic, exploration of historical performance practices. Beyond the expected challenges, what has been the most surprising or counter-intuitive discovery you've made about Wagner's intentions or the sound world of his time?

As you might imagine, there have been many unexpected discoveries.

To name only a few:

1. how close RW’s visionary multimedia concepts are to the foundations of current media formats

2. the active role of education and study required of the participants

3. how inseparable the relationship between music diction, pronunciation, agogic stress, rhythmic and pitch precision is to  dramatic theatre.

4. how refined and nuanced RW’s ideals of expression are such that content is prioritised, Emotion and vocal beauty are only a part of what is meant to be communicated.

5. RW’s complex employment of ornamentation for expression: vibrato, portamento, flexibility of tempo, harmonic accent, and spontaneity.

6. the intertwined relationship of parlando and bel canto techniques

7. the importance of his revolutionary compositional techniques, expanded orchestral forces, the priority of transparency and balance required to allow the full potential of vocal expression to emerge.

8. subtle, and at times not so subtle, social commentary

only to name a few.

Has this deep dive into historical authenticity ever led you to question or re-evaluate your own long-held interpretive instincts for other repertoire?

Yes - the inspiration and knowledge derived from the intensive research of historically informed performance practice can be applied to the entire repertoire.

 The "Original Virtual Reality" and its Future

You've eloquently described opera as the 'original virtual reality,' capable of transporting audiences to another world. In an age of rapidly advancing digital virtual reality and immersive technologies, how do you envision the traditional opera house evolving to maintain or even enhance its unique 'virtual reality' experience? Are there specific technological integrations or artistic innovations you believe could deepen this immersive quality without compromising the core live performance?

The magic of theatre comes from its ability to trigger our imagination such that we, ourselves, become an engaged, integral part of the performance and experience a different, but very real, existential “reality”.

Everyone whom I know has had the experience of entering a performance venue distracted by the day's various events: a traffic jam, argument with a colleague, unexpected news etc. Then after a few minutes in an especially strong performance they find themselves unconsciously transported out of the venue into another world.

Upon returning after some minutes or even an hour back to the venue and the neighbours sitting nearby, we then ask ourselves - where was I, where has the time gone, what has happened to the environment in which I have been?

In those moments, we were in an exotic imaginary world outside of our daily routine.

This experience is quite different from entertainment where the entertainment informs us where we are, who we are, what is happening, and is about to happen. Our participation is primarily passive rather than active.

This is risk of digital representation.

The more sophisticated the technical advancement, the more passive our participation can become which, while often very enjoyable, is different than actively being a part of the creative process. 

With the subject of AI dominating much of the discussion these days, I find it important that we as artists explore ways to work with emerging technology in creative collaboration rather than in ways which encourage passive consumption.

 There are several projects involving major scientific institutions in which I am involved which hopefully we at the OCNE might explore together.

The Unsung Heroes and Mentors

Beyond the well-documented influences of your mentors like Messiaen and Boulez, could you recall a specific, perhaps unconventional, piece of advice or a particular working habit you observed from any of your teachers or early collaborators that profoundly shaped your approach to conducting, even if it wasn't immediately apparent at the time?

If you allow me to share a small anecdote: my piano professor and I were attending an all Beethoven symphonic concert and the hall was only 60% full. The performance was average and not particularly inspiring nor well prepared and public was elderly and gave the impression of not being particularly engaged. The reception was polite and brief. Upon leaving the performance, my mentor turned to me and said, “If a Beethoven concert is not completely sold out, it is not the fault of Beethoven!” This statement, while superficially amusing, carries deep implications which have and remain a fundamental in every program design, and the research, preparation, rehearsal and execution of every performance to this day.

On Frank Zappa's legacy

Maestro, do you think the classical music world has fully accepted Frank Zappa's compositional work? Why or why not?

Unfortunately, I do not qualified to share an opinion

If Zappa had lived longer, what kind of collaboration would you have liked to explore with him?

Before his passing we had discussed an opera creation which sadly was never realised.

Which of Zappa's pieces do you consider most underrated or deserving of greater recognition in the contemporary orchestral repertoire?

Perhaps it might be Mo and Herb’s Vacation which is/was a work in progress. FZ's innovative use of irrational rhythm and the resulting counterpoint and unusual structural forms provoke dramatic expressions: irony, humour, insult, joy which are naturally irresistible to the public.

How do you think Zappa's music should be taught in conservatories and music schools today?

Objectively, just as we approach other works of the repertoire through application of theory and analysis. It is only through this process that exceptional qualities naturally stand out from the ordinary.

Thank you very much, Maestro Kent Nagano, for your kind answers.