AlexanderShelley

Alexander Shelley is Music Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Alexander was also recently appointed Artistic and Music Director of Artis­­—Naples in Florida, which will see him provide artistic leadership for Naples Philharmonic, as well as for the entire multidisciplinary arts organisation. This position began at the start of season 2024/25.

In addition to this, the Pacific Symphony in LA have just announced the appointment of Alexander as their next Artistic and Music Director. The initial five-year term begins in the 2026/27 season, with Alexander serving as Music Director Designate from September 2025. 

He is also Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen’s ECHO and Deutsche Gründerpreis-winning “Zukunftslabor”. In August 2017 Alexander concluded his tenure as Chief Conductor of the Nürnberger Symphoniker, a position he held since September 2009.

Unanimous winner of the 2005 Leeds Conductors' Competition, he has since worked regularly with the leading orchestras of Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, NDR Orchester Hannover, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Gothenburg Symphony, Stockholm Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Milwaukee, Melbourne and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras.

Alexander’s operatic engagements have included The Merry Widow and Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet (Den Kongelige Opera); La bohème (Opera Lyra/National Arts Centre), Iolanta (Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen), Così fan tutte (Opéra national de Montpellier), and The Marriage of Figaro (Opera North) in 2015. In 2017 he led a co-production of Harry Somers’ Louis Riel with the NACO and Canadian Opera Company.