Néstor Bayona is a Spanish conductor based in Berlin and Barcelona. He is the Resident Conductor at the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR), a newly created position after serving as the orchestra’s Assistant Conductor in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons.
With a career spanning over a decade, Néstor Bayona is gaining recognition from international orchestras and opera houses. In the 2022/23 season, Néstor had a full season of engagements in England, France, Japan, Poland, Romania and Spain, kicking off the season with NOSPR’s tour to Japan as assistant conductor to Marin Alsop. He made his debut with the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès, Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid and Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias, and conducted concerts with NOSPR and the Filarmonică de Stat Transilvania în Cluj. In addition to his new appointment by the Mayor of Lleida Félix Larrosa to be part of the Board of Trustees of the Julià Carbonell Foundation, in the 2023/24 season he will be conducting the double bill Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci at the Cluj-Napoca Hungarian Opera and will be returning to the Palau de la Música Catalana.
In 2021, he was recognised as Associate Member of the Royal Northern College of Music, a new award for up-and-coming alumni of the college. The 2021/22 season also saw him make his conducting debut at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona and performing at the Enescu Festival with Alban Berg’s Lulu together with Lawrence Foster, where he returned with Pelléas and Mélisande this September. In addition, he conducted subscription concerts with NOSPR, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille and the Filarmonică de Stat Transilvania în Cluj.
Other former guest invitations include conducting debuts at the Festival International de Piano de la Roque d’Anthéron with the soloist David Kadouch, and at the Grand Théâtre in Aix-en-Provence with David Fray. He has conducted the Bochumer Symphoniker, the Orquesta de Extremadura, the Orquesta de Castilla y León and made his debut at the Berliner Philharmonie with the Deutsche Skandinavische Jugend-Philharmonie.
Previously, he was assistant at the Opéra de Marseille in the 2018/19 and 2021/22 seasons, as well as in productions at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Komische Oper in Berlin, the Frankfurter Oper and Pentatone for the recording of Fanciulla del West. He has worked with the conductors Lionel Bringuier, Peter Eötvös, Domingo Hindoyan, Henrik Nánási, Neeme Järvi, Susanna Mälkki, Ingo Metzmacher and Pinchas Steinberg.
After studying piano at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester with Helen Krizos, Néstor Bayona was awarded the Gold Medal for his achievements as a pianist and completed a Master in Piano at the Haute École de Musique de Genève where he studied piano with Nelson Goerner. There he pursued a Master in Conducting with Laurent Gay, before moving to Berlin to do a Postgraduate Diploma in Conducting with Steven Sloane and Harry Curtis at the Universität der Künste. He was an emerging conductor of the Ulysses Network and received the Ciutat de Lleida International Award 2015 for his cultural contribution to his hometown Lleida.
