Helen Grime: Violin Concerto Release January 16, 2026
Daniel Harding
Conductor
Daniel Harding is one of the leading conductors of his generation, renowned for his versatility, musical insight, and commitment to artistic excellence. Until 2015, he served as Music and Artistic Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, with whom he continues a close relationship. From 2016 to 2019, he was Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, and between 2007 and 2017, Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. He also holds the lifetime title of Conductor Laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble he has collaborated with for over two decades.
In 2024, he began a five-year term as Music Director of the Youth Music Culture The Greater Bay Area (YMCG), and in the 2024/25 season took up the role of Music Director of the Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Harding is a regular guest with the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Staatskapelle Dresden, and the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. In the United States, he has appeared with the Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco symphony orchestras.
An accomplished opera conductor, Harding made his La Scala debut in 2005 with Idomeneo and has since conducted Salome, Falstaff, Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci, and Le nozze di Figaro there, earning the Premio della Critica Musicale “Franco Abbiati”.
He has led major productions at the Salzburg Festival, the Royal Opera House, the Covent Garden, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, and the Wiener Staatsoper, among others, and is closely associated with the Aix-en-Provence Festival, where he has conducted acclaimed new productions of Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, La Traviata, and Eugene Onegin.
Harding’s extensive discography includes award-winning recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Virgin/EMI, BR Klassik, and Harmonia Mundi. His releases span symphonic, operatic, and choral repertoire, including Mahler’s Symphony No. 10, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, and Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem.
In the 2024/25 season, Harding begins his inaugural season with Santa Cecilia, conducting concert performances of Tosca and Verdi’s Requiem for Deutsche Grammophon, alongside engagements with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Orchestre de Paris.
Among his many distinctions, Harding has been appointed Chevalier and later Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and awarded a CBE in 2021. Uniquely, he is also a qualified airline pilot.