At once visionary and grounded, conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin embodies the spirit of perpetual motion at the heart of Rolex’s commitment to the arts. As Music Director of both The Metropolitan Opera and The Philadelphia Orchestra, and Artistic Director of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain, the multiple-Grammy winner bridges tradition and transformation with each performance.
His energy is seemingly never-ending. In one weekend, we witnessed Nézet-Séguin between Philadelphia and New York—conducting Yuja Wang with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and Verdi’s Aida at The Met. The experience was not out of the ordinary and further illustrates a career defined by mastery of time itself: shaping tempo, nurturing generations, and extending Rolex’s philosophy of excellence and transmission into the future.
Balancing Worlds with Yannick Nézet-Séguin
A scene from Mason Bates’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.” Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera.
WHITEWALL: This weekend, you’ve gone from working with young musicians at Curtis to leading Aida at The Met. How do you shift between such different worlds?
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: I’ve always loved keeping busy. People sometimes make statistics about who’s the busiest conductor, and I’m usually number one or two. But that’s not really the point. All musicians are busy—it’s our nature to always have music in our lives. For me, doing many things at once actually deepens each experience. Teaching at Curtis makes me think about what I want to express in detail, and then I go to the Philadelphia Orchestra that night and apply what I’ve just learned. Working on Verdi helps me understand Strauss differently. Everything feeds everything. It takes discipline, but it keeps me alive.
“Legacy isn’t something distant; it’s something we build every day,”
-Yannick Nézet-Séguin
WW: After conducting a production as grand as Aida, what’s your state of mind?
YNS: Conducting is very physical and very intense—I sweat a lot! It’s athletic, but it also requires deep focus because so many people depend on me, even though I’m the only one not making a sound. My brain gets tired, yes, but music gives me energy. I take care of myself like an athlete—sleep well, eat well, don’t drink too much. When I give energy to musicians and they give it back, it circulates, and suddenly I can do more. That exchange is vital.
When I work with young musicians, it recharges me. They surprise me, they give everything, and that gives me hope. That’s why I love teaching and mentoring. It’s not just about transmission—it’s about staying connected to what’s happening now. Legacy isn’t something distant; it’s something we build every day. I’m 50, but I want to conduct for another 50 years. Conductors never retire—we just keep transmitting what we’ve learned.
Conducting with Trust
A scene from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera.
WW: How do you cultivate trust when moving between orchestras, cultures, and even repertoires?
YNS: Trust is everything. You can’t buy it, you can’t decide it—it grows with time. When you’ve been with the same orchestra for years, like I have in Montreal for 25 years, Philadelphia for 14, and now The Met for eight, that trust becomes a shared language. We start to anticipate one another; we can take risks together. It’s like any deep relationship—it goes beyond words.
I often conduct performances at The Met without rehearsal. For Aida, everyone was different—the cast, the orchestra, the concertmaster. You come in, and you have to connect on an almost supernatural level. That’s where trust lives, in that unspoken connection.
WW: You’ve spoken about the importance of legacy and longevity, values you also share with Rolex. How does time figure into your life and art?
YNS: Time is everything for a conductor. I literally shape it every day—stretch it, compress it, make people feel it. But beyond the tempo of music, there’s a deeper kind of time: commitment. Long-term commitment to an institution, to an orchestra, to people. That’s something rare in our world, where everything moves fast.
My partnership with Rolex is meaningful because it’s built on that same philosophy—trust over time. They told me from the beginning, “When you join the Rolex family, it’s for the long term.” That resonated deeply with me. I’ve always believed that endurance is spiritual. We all rush toward quick experiences, but a long opera, like a long relationship, teaches patience, listening, and transformation. Maybe we don’t need another yoga retreat—we need to come to the opera!
When I wear my Rolex, I feel that sense of continuity. It shines, but it’s not bling—it’s joy. During rehearsals, the musicians often notice it; it becomes part of the rhythm between us. Time, shared and luminous.
Leading with Love Through Music at The Met
A scene from Mason Bates’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.” Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera.
WW: You’ve described conducting as an act of love. What does that mean for you?
YNS: Love is the starting point. Love for the music, love for the musicians, and love for the audience. If you’re on the podium without that, what’s the point? My role is to make people feel safe enough to give their best—to know that I’m with them. I’m not there to judge, I’m there to breathe with them. That’s when magic happens.
Whether at The Met or with the Philadelphia Orchestra, I want every musician to feel that what they do matters. And when they feel that, the audience feels it too. My opinion of whether something was “perfect” becomes irrelevant. What matters is that it moved people, that it reached them.
“Music can make you cry without knowing why—and that’s a kind of healing,”
-Yannick Nézet-Séguin
WW: What do you hope audiences take with them after one of your performances?
YNS: Emotion. Always emotion. I want people to feel transformed, elevated, like they’ve shared something human. Music can make you cry without knowing why—and that’s a kind of healing. In our world, saturated with words and news, music gives us a place to feel without explanation.
Opera, of course, is the total art form—story, movement, sound, color. But symphonic music, too, allows you to imagine freely. One person hears birds, another hears waves, another hears memory. Everyone reacts differently, but together. That’s the miracle of live performance—it’s shared solitude, collective intimacy.
WW: Finally, as someone who literally conducts time, what is your relationship to it now?
YNS: Time used to scare me—it felt like something running away. Now, I see it as something I can shape, like sound. It’s elastic. When I’m conducting, time stops and expands. It’s the most beautiful paradox: the more you give, the more you have.
And maybe that’s what Rolex and I share—a belief that time is not something to race against but something to honor, to live inside of. Every concert, every rehearsal, every new voice I meet, it’s another moment to turn time into music—and to make that music last.
