Nicholas Fox
Described by Oregon Arts Watch as “…a flipping genius”, conductor Nicholas Fox is the Associate Music Director at Portland Opera. Joining the company in the fall of 2013, Fox previously served there as Assistant Conductor and Chorus Master. During his tenure at Portland Opera, he has conducted seven mainstage productions, numerous chamber opera performances, and countless concerts, in repertoire ranging from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice to Philip Glass’s In The Penal Colony. In 2019, Fox stepped in at the last moment, without rehearsal, to lead a triumphant opening night performance of Portland Opera’s production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
Fox recently made his conducting debuts with the Siletz Bay Music Festival, where he stepped in with two days of notice to lead two major new works of composers Daniel Freiberg and Ethan Gans-Morse; with the Portland Chamber Orchestra, where he curated and conducted the PCO’s New Year’s Concert, a warmly received evening of Viennese waltzes, arias, and tone poems; and with New Orleans Opera, where he led the company’s March, 2025 production of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore.
A native of Los Angeles, Nicholas Fox began studying piano and composition at the age of twelve, and after a short time was performing both music from the standard repertoire and his own compositions. He gave numerous recitals in the Los Angeles area, and was a three-time gold medalist in the Southern California J.S. Bach festival.
Fox received his degree in orchestral conducting from the Mannes College of Music in New York, studying with David Hayes. In his final year at Mannes, he received the N.T. Milani Memorial Conducting Fellowship, awarded to an outstanding conducting student each year. After graduating from Mannes, Mr. Fox remained an extremely in-demand pianist, coach, teacher, and conductor in the New York area.
In September, 2009, Nicholas Fox was appointed Assistant Chorus Master at New York City Opera, and then Interim Chorus Master for the 2011-2012 season. At City Opera he helped with the musical preparation for over a dozen productions, including the New York premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet Place. For famed soprano Martina Arroyo’s Prelude to Performance program, Fox conducted the 2011 production of Puccini’s La Rondine, of which one critic wrote, “…Maestro Nicholas Fox, comparable to Yannick Nézet-Séguin both in stature and taste in brisk tempi, coaxed a truly outstanding and energetic performance from his superb orchestra.”
At Portland Opera, Fox has prepared the chorus for over thirty productions and concerts, including the Opera’s recent season-closing Puccini: In Concert, a monumental evening of arias and orchestral and choral excerpts at the Keller Auditorium that Fox curated, prepared, and conducted. He served as the principal coach of the Opera’s Resident Artist program for many years, guiding the company’s apprentice singers in their advancement and training. Fox continues to serve in that capacity with the program’s resident pianists and conductors.
In December, 2025, Fox was appointed Artistic Director of Opera in the Park Portland. This appointment followed two very successful summer presentations for upwards of 7,000 people at Peninsula Park in Portland, both led by Fox: in 2024, Verdi’s La Traviata, and in 2025, Bizet’s Carmen.
Fox served as Interim Music Director of Oregon Ballet Theatre for the 2024-25 season, conducting OBT’s annual Christmastime production of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker and its spring production of Adam’s Giselle. His most recent engagements include Portland Opera’s May, 2025 production of Verdi’s Falstaff (the opera after which Fox named his beloved cat) as well as the company’s highly successful 2025-26 season-opening production of Puccini’s La Bohème.