BIOGRAPHY
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Nicole León hails from a musical family. At just eight years old, she became the youngest student accepted to Dorothy DeLay's studio in the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School. Nicole 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 2016 to 2018. During her tenure with the ensemble, she performed at the iconic Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and collaborated with renowned soloists such as François Leleux, Lisa Batiashvili, Emmanuel Pahud and Daniel Hope.
Appearing regularly with Orchestre de Paris since their 2017-2018 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 Janine Jansen, performing extensively throughout France, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands.
Deeply committed to fostering a lifelong love of music in her students, Nicole currently serves on the faculties of the Blanc-Mesnil Conservatory, Enchantons! and L'Apprenti Musicien. She also maintains a private studio in the Paris metropolitan area. Click on "Teaching" for more information.
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. She also holds an Artist Diploma for postgraduate studies from the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris. A long-time admirer of the late Francis Kuttner, she performs on a violin he made in Cremona in 2011. She can be heard on Itzhak Perlman's Eternal Echoes: Songs and Dances for the Soul and Gautier Capuçon's 2017 album Intuition.
Nicole lives in Paris with her husband, Daniel, their young son, Gabriel, and a rescue cat named Panache.