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Gordan Nikolitch, also spelled Gordan Nikolić, (Serbian: Гордан Николић; born 1968) is a Franco-Serbian violinist.[1] He was the first concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra for nearly 20 years, having stepped down in October 2017 to concentrate on directing and teaching.
Born in a music loving family, Gordan Nikolitch began playing the violin when he was seven. He studied at the music conservatory in Basel, Switzerland, with Jean-Jacques Kantorow. He also met and worked with Walter Levin, Wytold Lutoslavsky, György Kurtág, Hans Werner Henze etc, cultivating an interest in contemporary music.
As a violinist, he participated and was awarded in many competitions, the Tibor Varga competition, Paganini competition at Genoa, Italy, Brescia and Vaclav Hummel competition at Zagreb. In 1989, he became concertmaster of Orchestre d'Auvergne, a post he held until 1999.
Nikolitch has been as well the leader of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Prince consort professor at the Royal College of Music in London, giving masterclasses at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he also teaches Master since 2005 at the CODARTS, Rotterdam Conservatory of Music and since 2017 he is Professor at the Hochschule für Musik Saarbrücken. Since September 2021, he is appointed as a violin teacher at Paris Conservatoire CNSMdP.
In 2004 he was named artistic director of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Amsterdam, a group created in the 1950es by Szymon Goldberg, the concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic from the times of their conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler. It was more than natural to take the same approach of directing from the concertmaster position and the hundreds of concerts played in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam have been oriented towards the most flexible interaction of all musicians involved. Playing in the hall of the Royal Concertgebouw with this group of motivated musicians became a constant source of inspiration that helps greatly define the (ever moving) platform of ideas on music making.
2006-2011 he was Musical Director of St George Strings, an orchestra based in Belgrade, Serbia.
Since 2007 Musical Director of BandArt orchestra with among others performances of operas Gluck’s Orpheo, and Mozart’s Idomeneo, in festivals of Peralada, Ludwigsbourg, Luzern. The latest collaboration with OSCyL featured on the programme the Schubert “Unfinished” and Bruckner 9 symphonies.
Nikolitch shares his experience by directing many other orchestras, among them Orquesta Nacional d'España, Orquesta d'opera Madrid, Orchestre National D'Île de France, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de chambre de Geneve, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Radio Simfonijski orkestar Slovenija, OSCyL etc.
He plays violins by Paul Belin fecit anno 2016 and a Petrus Guarnerius Venice offered graciously to use by a generous sponsor, bows by F.X. Tourte and J.P.M. Persoit, having in the past played violins by Giuseppe Guarneri, Gaspare Lorenzini, Matteo Goffriler and Lorenzo Storioni.
