Nicolas Ellis is Principal Guest Conductor of Les Violons du Roy. He is also Music Director of the Orchestre National de Bretagne and Artistic Director and Conductor of the Orchestre
de l’Agora, which he founded in Montréal in 2013.

Nicolas is one of the most active conductors on the Canadian scene. He has appeared with the Vancouver Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the I Musici de Montréal Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, the Opéra de Québec and the Opéra de Montréal. Internationally, he was invited to conduct at the Graz Opera, the Opéra de Rennes, the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra in Finland, the Luxembourg Philharmonic and the San Diego
Symphony.

Among the musical encounters and projects that have strongly influenced him are his former position as Artistic Collaborator of the Orchestre Métropolitain and Yannick Nézet-Séguin from 2018 to 2023, and his role as assistant conductor to Raphaël Pichon and the Ensemble Pygmalion in opera productions at the Opéra-Comique, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and the Salzburg Festival.

At the helm of his Orchestre de l’Agora, Nicolas conducts a rich repertoire ranging from Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea to Mahler’s 3rd Symphony. In keeping with the Agora’s outreach mission, Nicolas has set up musical creation projects with teenagers coping with mental illness, educational workshops for children, and a series of monthly concerts for the inmates at the Bordeaux Prison in Montréal.

Nicolas Ellis is the recipient of the 2017 Fernand-Lindsay Career Grant and has also been awarded the Prix Goyer Mécénat Musica 2021.