Daniel Harding

Daniel Harding displayed prodigious talent on the podium from an early age, securing global recognition already in his teenage years. That pattern of precocious accomplishment has extended into his later professional life through prominent leadership posts and a substantial body of recorded work.

Born in Oxford on August 31, 1975, he first studied recorder, then trained as a trumpeter at Chetham's School of Music and entered Britain's National Youth Orchestra at age 13. The following year he resolved to become a conductor, assembling an orchestra from fellow students. At 17 he directed them in Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, a demanding score for any baton wielder. The concert succeeded, prompting the determined youth to send a tape to Simon Rattle. Though initially dismissive according to his own recollection, Rattle attended a later performance and came away impressed. Harding was promptly engaged as assistant conductor at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, making his debut there in 1994.

His reputation quickly spread. Composer Hans Werner Henze enlisted him to help prepare the Munich Biennial Festival, and he participated in a conducting master class led by Pierre Boulez. For the 1995-1996 season he joined the Berlin Philharmonic as assistant to Claudio Abbado. When Franz Welser-Möst fell ill, Harding took the podium without rehearsal for a program of Berlioz, Brahms, and Dvořák, earning critical praise and worldwide attention. In 1996 he became the youngest conductor ever to lead a BBC Proms concert. The next year brought major appointments as principal conductor of both the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra in Norway and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie in Bremen, Germany. After leaving the latter ensemble in 2003, he was named principal guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra the following year.

He assumed the principal conductor position with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2007 and remains there into the early 2020s. He also served as chief conductor of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra from 2003 to 2011, continuing thereafter as laureate, and held the same post with the Orchestre de Paris from 2015 to 2018. Numerous guest engagements have taken him to leading orchestras and opera houses, among them Italy's La Scala.

Harding has recorded extensively with nearly every ensemble he has directed, releasing discs on Virgin, EMI, Harmonia Mundi, and other major labels. In 2020 he led the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Schoenberg's Violin Concerto and Verklärte Nacht, featuring violinist Isabelle Faust. In addition to his conducting commitments, he maintains a commercial pilot's license and flies part-time for Air France as of the early 2020s.