Nicholas Carter & MultiPiano

Celebrated recently for his conducting of Brett Dean Hamlet and Britten Peter Grimes at the Metropolitan Opera, Nicholas Carter is one of the leading opera conductors of his generation. Since 2021 he has been Chief Conductor and Co-Operndirektor of Bühnen Bern, following his positions as Kapellmeister at the Staatsoper Hamburg and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and as Chief Conductor of the Stadttheater Klagenfurt and the Kärntner Sinfonieorchester from 2018 to 2021. Serving as Principal Conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra from 2016 to 2019, Carter has since been in international demand in the symphonic field.

At the heart of Nicholas Carter’s tenure in Bern is the new production of Wagner Der Ring des Nibelungen, which he also conducted at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in the 2023/2024 season. In 2024/2025, he leads a new production of Prokofiev’s Gambler at Staatsoper Stuttgart and returns to Staatsoper Hamburg for Mozart’s Figaro. In previous seaons, he has also worked with the Wiener Staatsoper, Oper Zürich, Oper Köln, Santa Fe Opera and Deutsche Oper am Rhein as well as at the Glyndebourne Festival. His extensive operatic repertoire ranges from Mozart, Verdi, Wagner and Strauss to Russian and French works and contemporary composers such as Brett Dean, with whom he has a close artistic relationship.

Alongside regular collaborations with Australia’s leading symphony orchestras, Carter’s recent and forthcoming symphonic highlights include appearances with the Seattle Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Oregon Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Métropolitain, Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre National de Lille, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Bochumer Symphoniker, Brucknerorchester Linz, Seoul Philharmonic and Hong Kong Philharmonic, among others.

Formed as a unique modular piano ensemble, MultiPiano is dedicated to the rich literature written for keyboard ensembles, from one piano with four hands to several pianos in a variety of multi-hand combinations. The MultiPiano project was launched in 2011 under the umbrella of the Buchmann–Mehta School of Music, a joint institution of Tel Aviv University and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Featuring some of Israel’s radiant young pianists and their mentor Tomer Lev, one of the country’s prominent musicians, the MultiPiano project attracted much international attention immediately upon its foundation.

The ensemble has performed on four continents, from the Beijing Concert Hall and Buenos Aires’s Teatro Colón to New York’s Merkin Concert Hall and high-profile venues in London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Tel Aviv, Riga and Tallinn, collaborating with world-class orchestras and organisations such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSB), English Chamber Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta, Mozarteum Argentino and others. The ensemble has performed at the Taipei, Xiamen, Ottawa, Baltic Sea, Hualien, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem music festivals, as well as on television and radio networks across the globe. In 2015, MultiPiano was awarded the Israeli Ministry of Culture prize for ‘Best Israeli Chamber Ensemble’.

In April 2021, the ensemble’s first commercial recording, with the English Chamber Orchestra, was released by Hyperion Records – “Mozart: The complete multipiano concertos”, including the first-ever concertante completion, for two pianos and orchestra, of Mozart’s Larghetto and Allegro in E flat major (1781). The album was met with enthusiastic reviews worldwide and ranked 6 in the UK “Top Ten” classical chart. This was followed by MultiPiano’s second album, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, released in November 2022 by Naxos, including three world premieres by Shostakovich, Martin and Levanon, alongside Poulenc’s double concerto. This album was included in Naxos’ best-selling albums for 2022-23.

The ensemble extensively toured the Far East in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015; South America in 2012 and 2014; North America in 2013; and routinely tours around Europe.

Considerable collaboration with Israel’s prominent orchestras has led to rare and daring repertoire selections, such as the premiere of Frank Martin’s Petite symphonie concertante for three pianos (originally harp, harpsichord and piano) and two string orchestras with the Israel Camerata Jerusalem, the first professional performance of Mendelssohn’s newly discovered Duo concertant: Variations on Weber’s ‘Preciosa’ for two pianos and orchestra, WoO25 (the original 1833 version), with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra and Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion, and the two-piano version of Chopin’s Rondo in C major, Op 73, with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, as well as concerto commissions by Israeli composers Aryeh Levanon and Oded Zehavi.

In 2018, the ensemble presented a new version of Holst’s The Planets for piano and percussion ensemble, celebrating the iconic work’s centennial in a special concert at Merkin Concert Hall in New York. This unique version was created by seven prominent Israeli composers especially for MultiPiano and Tremolo percussion ensemble.

In 2022, the ensemble collaborated with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in recording works by Mendelssohn, Schubert-Liszt and Moscheles.