Nicholas McGegan

James Nicholas McGeganOBE (born 14 January 1950 in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, England) is a British harpsichordist, flautist, conductor and early music expert.

McGegan received his early education at Nottingham High School. He subsequently studied music at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and at Magdalen College, Oxford. McGegan has participated in some of the earliest "authentic-performance" recordings during the 1970s as a baroque flautist, including Christopher Hogwood's seminal recordings of Mozart symphonies. He has taught music at such UK institutions as King's College, Cambridge, Oriel College, Oxford, and the Royal College of Music. In the USA, McGegan has served as artist-in-residence at Washington University in St. Louis, beginning in 1979 when he was initially scheduled for one semester in residence, but his residency extended into the mid-1980s.

Since 1985, McGegan has been music director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco and Berkeley, California. In 1988, he served as Music Director of the Ojai Music Festival alongside Peter Maxwell Davies and Diane Wittry. From 1993-98 he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Scottish Opera in Glasgow. From 1991 to 2011, McGegan was also Artistic Director of the Göttingen International Handel Festival. He was music director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra from 2002 to 2005. Since 2013 he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Pasadena Symphony, and in 2014 the became Artist in Association with Australia’s Adelaide Symphony. He has also held long-term appointments with the Drottningholm Theatre, where he served as principal conductor from 1993–96, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. McGegan also founded the chamber music group, The Arcadian Academy.