BIOGRAPHY
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Nicole León hails from a musical family. She has performed on the world's finest concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Wiener Musikverein, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the Philharmonie de Paris.
A seasoned orchestral musician, Nicole was a member of the Paris Chamber Orchestra from 2015 to 2017. During her tenure with the ensemble, she performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées alongside renowned soloists such as François Leleux, Lisa Batiashvili, Emmanuel Pahud, Steven Isserlis, Antoine Tamestit and Daniel Hope.
Appearing regularly with Orchestre de Paris since their 2017-18 season, she has performed under the baton of Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph Eschenbach, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Paavo Järvi, Jaap van Zweden, Mikhaïl Pletnev, Lahav Shani, Semyon Bychkov and Klaus Mäkelä. In 2023, she joined the orchestra on tour with soloist Janine Jansen, performing extensively throughout France, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands.
A champion of new music, Nicole has premiered works by many of today's leading composers, including the world premiere of Régis Campo's Fata Morgana in 2014, the European premiere of Evan Fein's Untranslatable in 2019, and the world premiere of Paul Dessene's Diásporas for string quartet in 2023.
Nicole holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the Juilliard School, where she was a full-scholarship student of Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho. In addition, she earned an Artist Diploma from the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris in 2016. Teachers and mentors include her first teacher, Orlando Faneite, as well as Roland Daugareil, Christophe Poiget, Maurice Hasson and Virginie Robilliard.
Committed to fostering a lifelong love of music in her students, Nicole currently serves on the faculties of the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Départemental Erik Satie du Blanc-Mesnil and L'Apprenti Musicien.
Nicole lives in Paris with her husband and their two young children. She performs on a violin crafted in 2011 by the late Francis Kuttner. She can be heard on Itzhak Perlman's Eternal Echoes: Songs and Dances for the Soul and Gautier Capuçon's Intuition.