First Prize winner and Special Orchestra Prize at the 8th International Jorma Panula Conducting Competition, Nathanaël Iselin is a French conductor, currently based in Scandinavia and the Netherlands. Nathanaël Iselin started his conducting career as assistant conductor of the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, the first person to hold that position in Denmark. Shortly thereafter he won the Jorma Panula Competition in Finland. He was then appointed Conductor in Residence of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Some recent highlights include conducting the Copenhagen Philharmonic, and the orchestras of Odense, Aalborg, Aarhus, Sønderjylland, Lahti, Vaasa, Jyväskylä, Kymi, Iceland and Picardie in pieces such as Bruckner 3rd symphony, Dvořák 8th and Debussy "La Mer". He also led Opera Hedeland’s latest production, La Cenerentola. On various other occasions Nathanaël had the chance to conduct such orchestras as the London Symphony Orchestra, the WDR Sinfonieorchester, the Danish Radio Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic, the Singapore Symphony, the Orchestre National de France, the Finnish Radio, the Helsinki Philharmonic, and the Gürzenich Orchester Köln. Iselin studied orchestra conducting at the Sibelius Academy - Helsinki, Hochschule der Künste, Zürich, Royal Danish Academy of Music, and Conservatoire National de Musique in Paris. He has been mentored and participated in masterclasses by such renowned conductors as Iván Fischer, Mariss Jansons, Fabio Luisi, Susanna Mälkki, Sakari Oramo, Michael Schønwandt, Giordano Bellincampi, Johannes Schlaefli, Thomas Søndergård, Alexander Vedernikov, Simone Young and Jaap van Zweden. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in Contemporary Percussion and a master’s diploma in Harmony from the Paris National Conservatoire. As a percussionist, he has performed with the Ensemble Intercontemporain-CNSMDP, the Limoges Opera, the Nouvelle Europe Orchestra, led by conductors such as David Zinman, Dennis Russell Davies and Matthias Pintscher.