Daniel Harding

Conductor

Daniel Harding joins the LA Phil as its Music Director starting in the 27/28 season, spearheading the LA Phil’s evolving artistic leadership team. Acclaimed for his artistic leadership and craftsmanship, Harding’s repertoire is wide-ranging, from award winning recordings of baroque music to countless premieres of new works.

Daniel Harding was born in Oxford in 1975. As a teenager, he persuaded his school friends to play for him—not Mozart or Haydn, but fiercely complex 20th-century music. Simon Rattle invited him to become his assistant in Birmingham. Claudio Abbado brought him to Berlin shortly after.

Making music with the magnificent LA Phil musicians is a thrill and an inspiration... So many great artists have found possibilities here that don't exist anywhere else, and I come to California full of excitement for what we will discover and create together.

Daniel Harding

He came to international attention in 1998 when he conducted Don Giovanni at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in a production by legendary director Peter Brook. He was 22.

Daniel Harding conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic

Watch Daniel Harding conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic in an excerpt of Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2 at the Hollywood Bowl in 2025. Daniel Harding joins the LA Phil as its Music Director starting in the 27/28 season, spearheading the LA Phil’s evolving artistic leadership team. Acclaimed for his artistic leadership and craftsmanship, Harding’s repertoire is wide-ranging, from award winning recordings of baroque music to countless premieres of new works.

His subsequent career has been built on long relationships: 19 years with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra; decades with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, which he helped found; 10 years as Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra; more than 30 years of appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic; and more than 20 with the Vienna Philharmonic. He served as Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris before taking up his current position leading the orchestra and chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, one of the world’s oldest musical institutions. Beginning with the 2027/28 season, he becomes Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

He is a Grammy winner and a pilot for a major European airline.

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Watch & Listen

Article

Dodgers with Dudamel, traffic and In-N-Out. A day in L.A. with the LA Phil’s new music director

The LA Times rides along with the LA Phil's newly minted music director, Daniel Harding, as the conductor takes in his new city.

Video

An L.A. day with the LA Phil's new music director

One early morning this week, Daniel Harding, the LA Phil's new music director, touched down at LAX and immediately went to In-N-Out.

Video

The Art of Conducting with Daniel Harding

Daniel Harding talks to us about how one gets into conducting at a very young age, about how his initial sound idea evolves during the rehearsal process, about the similarities between piloting an aircraft & conducting an orchestra and much more!