His mother founded the first early music ensemble in Latvia, and his father was a choral conductor, cellist, and teacher.

[1] At age five, his mother and stepfather (a choir conductor) took him to a performance of Wagner's Tannhäuser, which Nelsons refers to as a profoundly formative experience: "...it had a hypnotic effect on me.

He came to the attention of Mariss Jansons when he emergency-substituted with the Oslo Philharmonic in their trumpet section during an orchestra tour.

[6] In 2006, Nelsons became chief conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie of Herford, Germany, a post he held until the end of the 2008/09 season.

[9] In October 2007, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) named Nelsons as its 12th principal conductor and music director, effective with the 2008/09 season, with an initial contract for three years.

[13][14] In October 2013, the CBSO announced the conclusion of Nelsons's tenure as music director after the end of the 2014/15 season.

[15][16] In the US, Nelsons made his first guest-conducting appearance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in March 2011, as an emergency substitute for James Levine at Carnegie Hall.

[21] In October 2020, the BSO announced a further extension of Nelsons' contract as music director through August 2025, with an evergreen clause for automatic renewal.

[22] With the CBSO, Nelsons has recorded music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky,[26][27] Richard Strauss,[28] and Igor Stravinsky[29] for the Orfeo label.

[32][33] In 2019 DG published Complete Beethoven symphonies with Andris Nelsons and Vienna Philharmonic (Wiener Philharmoniker).

[39] Nelsons is a longtime practitioner of Taekwondo, and earned his black belt in November 2022.