ABOUT

Born in Isfahan (Iran) and educated between Italy and Europe, Nima Keshavarzi has emerged as one of the most versatile and dynamic conductors of his generation. Equally at ease in the symphonic and operatic repertoire, he demonstrates a particular affinity for twentieth-century and contemporary music, with a special focus on Italian and Persian composers.

In 2025, Keshavarzi makes his debut at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and with the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto (OPV), further consolidating his growing profile within the Italian orchestral landscape. Since 2021, he has held a close artistic partnership with the Camerata Strumentale di Prato, while in Iran he serves as Principal Guest Conductor of both the Iran National Orchestra and the Tehran Symphony Orchestra.

As Co-Founder and Music Director of La Filharmonie – Orchestra Filarmonica di Firenze, Keshavarzi has led the ensemble since its inception in 2016, guiding it to become one of the most vibrant and forward-looking orchestral realities on the Italian scene. With La Filharmonie, he has conducted complete symphonic cycles dedicated to Mozart and Mendelssohn, and an Italian tour with Enrico Bronzi as soloist. Recent highlights include performances at the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte di Montepulciano and the Festival International de Musique Symphonique d’Eljem in Tunisia.

A committed advocate for contemporary creation, Keshavarzi has conducted and recorded works by Anders Hillborg, Arvo Pärt, Nicola Campogrande, Reza Vali, Andrea Portera, Ari Benjamin Meyers, David John Roche, Francesco Darmanin, Steven Heelein, Paolo Cognetti, and Paolo Marzocchi. He is Music Director and Artistic Board Member of the “Dante 700” International Composition Competition, broadcast worldwide by RAI, and Co-Founder of Fil_Armonia, a festival devoted to twentieth- and twenty-first-century music.

Since 2015, Keshavarzi has collaborated as Assistant Conductor to Roberto Abbado, contributing to major productions in leading opera houses including the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma (I masnadieri, Andrea Chénier, Benvenuto Cellini), Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Tancredi), Teatro Comunale di Bologna (Macbeth), Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro (Le Siège de Corinthe), and the Festival Verdi in Parma (Il trovatore, Luisa Miller, Macbeth, Ernani).

Keshavarzi studied violin and composition at the University of Tehran, the Conservatorio “L. Cherubini” in Florence, and the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole. He went on to specialize in orchestral conducting with Alessandro Pinzauti in Florence and at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels with Bart Bouckaert, Lukas Vis, and Arturo Tamayo. Further studies took him to the Accademia Chigiana di Siena with Gianluigi Gelmetti and the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne with Michael Luig.

He has also refined his craft under the guidance of Zubin Mehta, Michel Tabachnik, and Donato Renzetti.
Keshavarzi is fluent in English, Italian, German, French, and Persian.