Australian conductor Dr Nicholas Milton AM has been named the new Chief Conductor and General Music Director of the State Opera in Klagenfurt, Austria, as well as the Chief Conductor of the Kärtner Symphonieorchester (Carinthian Symphony Orchestra).

Nicholas Milton. Photo © Sarah Walker

Milton, who is Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra in Germany as well as heading up the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra in Sydney since 2000, bid farewell to the Canberra Symphony Orchestra at the end of 2020 after 15 years at the helm. He held the position of General Music Director and Chief Conductor with the State Opera House in Saarbrücken, Germany, from 2014 to 2018, and has recently conducted for houses including the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Komische Oper Berlin and Vienna’s Volksoper. In Sydney he has conducted operas including Tosca, La Bohème and Madama Butterfly for Opera Australia.

“It is an enormous pleasure for us to have attracted this internationally acclaimed conductor to our theatre,” said the Stadttheater Klagenfurt’s Intendant Aron Stiehl. “With his wide experience, his profound and broad knowledge of the repertoire and above all, his extraordinary musical sensibilities, Nicholas Milton will lead...