Edward Gardner - NOSPR

Edward Gardner is Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Chief Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic, a position he will relinquish at the end of the 2023/2024 season. From August 2024 he will undertake the Music Directorship of the Norwegian Opera and Ballet (DNO&B), commencing the role of Artistic Director in February 2022.
During the 2021/2022 season, he will conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra in eleven concerts at the Royal Festival Hall, including five UK premieres. He opened the season on 25 September 2021 with a concert performance of Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage, where the London Philharmonic Choir was joined by the English National Opera Chorus. Other programmes during the season include Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Bartók's Bluebeard’s Castle, and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. Edward Gardner and the LPO will also take part in the Enescu Festival in Bucharest as well as undertake an extensive tour of Germany.
He opened the Bergen Philharmonic season with a performance of Harmonium by Adams. Further highlights include an all-Stravinsky programme and new commissions by Thomas Larcher, Ryan Wigglesworth, and Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi. Following recent tours to Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, and at the BBC Proms and Edinburgh International Festival, the orchestra has several European tours planned for the coming seasons. Edward Gardner is also Chief Conductor of the Edvard Grieg Korene (EGK) and will conduct at least 2 concert productions each season in the period 2021–2024.
In demand as a guest conductor, the previous two seasons saw his debut with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Wiener Symphoniker; while returns included engagements with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Montreal Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Philharmonia Orchestra and Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano. He also continued his longstanding collaborations with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where he was Principal Guest Conductor from 2010–2016, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, whom he has conducted at both the First and Last Night of the BBC Proms.
Music Director of English National Opera for eight years (2007–2015), he has an ongoing relationship with New York’s Metropolitan Opera where he has conducted productions of La damnation de Faust, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Der Rosenkavalier, and Werther. In London, he has plans with the Royal Opera House where he made his debut in 2019 in a new production of Káťa Kabanová and returned for Werther the following season. The 2021/2022 season will see Edward Gardner make his debut with Bayerische Staatsoper in a new production of Peter Grimes. Elsewhere, he has conducted at Teatro alla Scala, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Opéra national de Paris.
A passionate supporter of young talent, he founded the Hallé Youth Orchestra in 2002 and regularly conducts the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He has a close relationship with the Juilliard School, and with the Royal Academy of Music who appointed him their inaugural Sir Charles Mackerras Conducting Chair in 2014.
Born in Gloucester in 1974, Edward Gardner was educated at Cambridge and the Royal Academy of Music. He went on to become Assistant Conductor of The Hallé and Music Director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera. His many accolades include being named Royal Philharmonic Society Award Conductor of the Year (2008), Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera (2009), and receiving an Order of the British Empire for Services to Music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours (2012).