Néstor Bayona is a Spanish conductor based in Berlin and Barcelona, who is gaining recognition from international orchestras and opera houses. With a successful 2021/22 season behind him, Nestor Bayona has been appointed as 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.

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 at the Enescu Festival with Alban Berg’s Lulu together with Lawrence Foster. In addition, he conducted subscription concerts with NOSPR, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille and the Filarmonica de Stat Transilvania in Cluj.

He kicked off the 2022/23 season with NOSPR’s tour to Japan as assistant conductor to Marin Alsop. During the same season, he will assist the Liverpool Philharmonic on Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and make his debut with the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès at the finals of the Ricard Viñes Piano Competition, as well as conduct concerts with NOSPR and the Filarmonica Transilvania.

Other former guest invitations include conducting debuts at the Festival International de Piano de la Roque d’Anthéron with and 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 further 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.