The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Principal Conductor Nicholas Carter has been appointed as the new Chefdirigent (Chief Conductor) of the Stadttheater Klagenfurt and Kärntner Sinfonieorchester in Austria – an initial three-year contract beginning September 2018. He has also had his contract in Adelaide extended for the 2018 season, the ASO announced.

^{Nicholas Carter and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Photo: Supplied}

The ASO, of which Carter has been the Principal Conductor since 2016 – one of the youngest leaders of an Australian state orchestra ever and the first time an Australian has been appointed to such a post since 1987 –  has also announced that his contract will be extended through its 2018 season.

Carter’s relationship with the ASO has been incredibly successful thus far. “Those of us who have been watching Carter’s progress over recent years are delighted and not surprised that he has risen so quickly in the musical world,” wrote Limelight reviewer James McCarthy in 2015.

“Just six months into his tenure as Principal Conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Nicholas Carter is already proving to be a rejuvenating and inspiration force, heralding an exciting new era of music-making,” wrote Dylan Henderson for Limelight last year. “The apparent ease with which Carter and the ASO navigated through this formidably taxing programme could not have been easily replicated by even the most experienced of conductors.”

“Nicholas’s tenure marks a period of renewal and regeneration for the ASO,” said the ASO’s Managing Director Vincent Ciccarello, “and it is no surprise that his increasing profile in Europe and the United States should be reflected in the wonderful news of his appointment as Chief Conductor of Stadttheater Klagenfurt.”

Carter will conduct three opera productions with the Stadttheater Klagenfurt as well as regularly conducting the Kärtner Sinfonieorchester in their concert season. “Klagenfurt am Wörthersee is a place that breathes music,” Carter said. “Mahler, Brahms and Berg were all drawn to this magical part of the world and my family and I anticipate with great pleasure making our home there. Already, I have shared wonderful evenings of music-making with the musicians of the Stadttheater Klagenfurt and the Kärntner Sinfonieorchester and am delighted and honoured to have been invited to become their next Chief Conductor.”

“We are most delighted to have appointed Nicholas Carter for our opera and orchestra,” Stadttheater Klagenfurt’s Intendant Florian Scholz said. “He combines at the same time youthful expressivity with great depth and sensibility. He won the hearts of our musicians by storm!”