Nicholas Buc is a conductor with a dynamic international career spanning the symphonic, film, and cross-genre worlds. Recognised for his narrative clarity, cinematic precision, and collaborative leadership on the podium, he appears regularly with major orchestras across North America, Australia, Europe, and Asia.
A leading figure in live film concerts, Buc has conducted the world premieres of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, and Field of Dreams. He is widely sought after for large-scale productions that fuse orchestral performance with storytelling and visual media.
Alongside his conducting work, Buc is an award-winning composer and arranger. His original live animation concert, Daughter of the Inner Stars, made its North American premiere with the Vancouver Symphony in 2025, and he has scored projects including The Apocalypse According to Mad Max, a French–Australian documentary on filmmaker George Miller. In 2026, his new arrangement of the Australian Open theme, commissioned by Tennis Australia and recorded with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, will debut at the tournament.
His cross-genre work includes collaborations with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, Chris Botti, Ben Folds, and The Cat Empire. He has served as conductor and arranger for Tina Arena on six Australian tours and has created arrangements for Diana Ross, Passenger, Birds of Tokyo, Lake Street Dive, Missy Higgins, and The Whitlams. His television credits include Junior MasterChef (2020), five seasons of The Voice Australia, and the 2021 Australian Football League Grand Final.
Buc studied composition at the University of Melbourne, receiving the inaugural Fellowship of Australian Composers Award, and later completed a Master’s in Scoring for Film and Multimedia at New York University, where he was honored with the Elmer Bernstein Award for Film Scoring.
The 2025–2026 season brings debut appearances with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, along with return engagements with the Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Toronto Symphony, New Japan Philharmonic, Orlando Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, and all major Australian symphony orchestras.
December 2025
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSOA by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
