Biography

Nikolai Song, born in 2002, began playing the recorder at the age of five and then switched to the flute three years later. At the age of only 13 he was accepted as one of the youngest students in the renowned Conservatoire de Paris in the class of Prof. Philippe Bernold and at the age of 16 in the class of Jan de Winne with the baroque flute. He is currently in his final master's year in flute and in his second year in Traverso at the Paris Conservatory.

Masterclasses with Patrick Gallois, Julien Beaudiment, Sylvain Sartre, Marc Hantaï and other important musicians helped him to develop his own style. He is also a scholarship holder of the Thea Keeler Foundation and the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein, where he regularly takes part in the intensive weeks with Prof. Philippe Bernold. 

Nikolai has won numerous national and international competitions. For example, in 2011 he received the 1st prize at the “Alexander & Buono International Flute Competition” in New York and the 1st prize and the highest possible number of points at the international music competition “Premio Citta’ di Padova” in Italy. In 2013 he won the 2nd prize at the “Young Artist Flute Competition” at the Australian Flute Festival. In January 2016, the jury of the “International Classical Music Awards” (ICMA) presented him with the “Discovery Award”, which was given for the first time to young musicians aged 12 to 18 years. 

Nikolai has performed several times as a soloist. He played with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, the Wolfgang Chamber Orchestra, the Barcelona Baroque Orchestra at the Pablo Casals Festival and the Euskadi Orchestra under Jun Märkel in San Sebastien. In 2014 he performed in Singapore at the gala concert “Tea for Two” with the Young Musicians’ Foundation Orchestra (Singapore). Nikolai is also active as an orchestral musician. Since 2011 he has been the youngest member of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra. In 2015 he was a guest at the Next Generation Bad Ragaz festival in Switzerland for the first time.

Nikolai has also played chamber music concerts, notably with the Quatour Yako at the Lyon Printemps Musical Festival and the Folles Journées de Nantes. 

In early music, Nikolai recently worked with the Concerto Soave and Jean-Marc Aymes at the Center for Baroque Music in Versailles and regularly takes part in the integral of the Bach cantatas of the Saint-Julien Symphony in Notre-Dame de Versailles.