Boston Symphony Orchestra Appoints Concertmaster After 5 Year Vacancy

American violinist Nathan Cole will begin in the Charles Munch chair at the start of the BSO's 2024 Tanglewood season in July

Violinist Nathan Cole will become the Boston Symphony Orchestra's (BSO) 11th concertmaster since its founding in 1881. As only the fourth BSO concertmaster in the past 104 years, Cole succeeds Malcolm Lowe, who retired in 2019 after serving for 35 years.

In addition to leading the orchestra’s violin section, Cole will be the artistic director of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players (BSCP) which was formed in 1964.

Previously, Cole has served as a guest concertmaster at the BSO, leading the orchestra through performances of a 1934 Shostakovich opera.

"We had immense pleasure collaborating with Nathan last January on Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk," BSO's Music Director Andris Nelsons said in a statement, "and we look forward to embracing his leadership within the orchestra, exploring our joint musical values, and partnering on our artistic journey together to serve the great music both within and beyond our Boston community."

Born into a musical family in Lexington, Kentucky, Cole made his debut with the Louisville Orchestra at the age of ten while studying with Donna Wiehe. He studied for a further eight years with Daniel Mason, a student of Jascha Heifetz, and went on to attend the Curtis Institute of Music, where his primary teachers were Pamela Frank, Felix Galimir, Ida Kavafian, and Jaime Laredo.

“This opportunity to be the BSO’s next concertmaster feels like something that I’ve been waiting for my whole life,” Cole said in a statement.

“Looking back, I feel fortunate to have known two people who held the position before me, Malcolm Lowe and Joseph Silverstein. Silverstein was one of my idols, and I grew up with many of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players recordings. Any time that I had to learn a piece, BSCP would have a recording of it with Silverstein leading, so I had his sound in my ear early on and was lucky to get to work with him before he passed away. But I always got the sense that he knew he was a custodian of the position, and that everything he did was for his colleagues and for the music, and that’s something that I want to carry forward.”