Nicholas Carter may be about to conduct his final concert as Principal Conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, but he’s not calling it “a farewell” any more than he saw the 2019 season as “valedictory”.

Nicholas CarterNicholas Carter. Photo © Roy Vandervegt

“We have already got some weeks in the calendar for 2020 and onwards, so Adelaide will be my home orchestra at least for the foreseeable future. It’s the [Australian orchestra with which] I have the closest relationship and it’s great that it will continue that way,” he says.

“I’ve got such love and affection for this beautiful orchestra and I feel that love and affection back too, if that’s not too presumptive of me to say. We’ve put on so many remarkable concerts, particularly the Brett Dean Hamlet [at the 2018 Adelaide Festival]. I think we all grew together and matured on so many levels by performing such a remarkably difficult piece. To have been challenged by that, and to have grown and learned from that really binds us together forever, I’d like to think.”

But with the world calling, it’s time for Carter to put down the baton...