TIMOTHY NELSON

Timothy Nelson currently serves as Artistic Director of IN Series in Washington, DC. During his tenure, he has grown the company into the leading voice in American “small” opera – redefining the artform, the boundaries between repertoires, cultural histories and expressions, and living into the vision that opera-theater presented intimately has greater power to impact and ultimately transform audiences and communities. His recent work with the company includes a three-year cycle of Monteverdi’s operas, each in collaboration with different contemporary practitioners of Asian forms of dance and theater; OTHELLO/DESDEMONA, a two-evening theatrical experience combining a new version of Verdi’s Otello with new interludes by composer Matthew Evan Taylor, and Toni Morrison’s play Desdemona with music by Nina Simone; LAS MISTICAS DE MEXICO, an immersive arts experience weaving together an 11th century chant-drama with four centuries of music and poetry by mystical Mexican female artists explores the disappearance of women and children throughout Latin America; THE PROMISED END, a staging of Verdi’s Requiem with an original one-woman version of Shakespeare’s King Lear; REQUIEM combining the final musics of three composers who died young leaving unfinished requiems – Mozart, Vivier, and Boulanger; THE ORDERING OF MOSES, an immersive first staging of Nathenial Dett’s epic oratorio in collaboration with three DC churches telling their unique story of race, religion, and reconciliation; L’ENFANCE DU CHRIST, a staging of Berlioz’s oratorio in which audiences travelled through a migration journey at the US/Mexican border searching for welcome.

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Before joining IN Series, Nelson was Artistic Director the Netherlands Opera Studio and Nieuwe Stemmen of the Rotterdam Operadagen (now the O Festival). Beyond is work with IN Series, recent professional engagements have included English Touring Opera, San Diego Opera, the Barbican, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Netherlands Reisopera, Festival Valle d’Itria, and the Grachtenfestival.

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Active as director, conductor, and composer, Nelson’s musicality is primary in work that is equally committed to community engagement, authentic collaboration, reverence bounded by irreverence, and innovation.