Born in Oxford in 1975, Daniel Harding began his career while still a student at Cambridge University, assisting Sir Simon Rattle at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In 1994 he made his profes-sional debut with the CBSO (winning the Royal Philharmonic Society’s “Best Debut” award) and went on to assist Claudio Abbado at the Berliner Philharmoniker. He has since made a name for himself as one of the brightest of a new generation of conductors and has appeared with the world’s leading orchestras and opera companies to great critical acclaim.
1996
Harding makes his Berliner Philharmoniker debut at the 1996 Berlin Festival and later this year becomes the youngest conductor ever to appear at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall
1997
Appointed Principal Conductor of the Trondheim Symphony in Norway (until 2000), Principal Guest Conductor of Sweden’s Norrköping Symphony (until 2003) and Music Director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (until 2003)
1998
Conducts Mozart’s Don Giovanni at his Aix-en-Provence Festival debut
2001
Returns to the Aix Festival for Britten’s The Turn of the Screw
2002
Makes his Bavarian State Opera debut in Mozart’s Entführung; conducts The Turn of the Screw at his Covent Garden debut and at the Edinburgh Festival; returns to the Aix Festival for Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Concerts this year include appearances with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie at London’s Barbican and the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall; wins awards for his recording of The Turn of the Screw with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (Choc de l’année, Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros, Gramophone Award); Harding is awarded the title Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government
2003
Becomes the first Music Director of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; appears with the Dresden Staatskapelle at the Salzburg Festival; conducts Haydn’s Seven Last Words at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; returns to the Barbican with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and conducts his farewell concert with the Bremen Orchestra at the BBC; in the USA, he makes his debuts with the orchestras of Philadelphia and Minnesota
2004
Conducts Mahler’s Tenth in his debuts with the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Los Angeles Phil-harmonic and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and also performs the Mahler with the London Symphony Orchestra; conducts the LSO’s centenary gala concert. Returns to the Aix Festival for Verdi’s La Traviata
2005
Così fan tutte at the Aix Festival; further concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra; debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; triumphant La Scala debut conducting Mozart’s Idomeneo
2006
Harding returns to Covent Garden for Berg’s Wozzeck, conducts Mozart’s Zauberflöte in Vienna and Aix-en-Provence, Don Giovanni in Salzburg and Così fan tutte in Vienna. He appears with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Bryn Terfel at an opera gala in Stockholm; with the Philharmonic Orchestra of La Scala in Italy; gives numerous concerts with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra throughout Europe, on tour to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan; European tour with Anne Sofie von Otter with the programme “Excerpts from the Great American Songbook”. He conducts the Tokyo Philharmonic in Tokyo; the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Chicago; and the Wiener Philharmoniker at the Vienna Musikverein, in Athens and a Mozart Gala at the Salzburg Festival with Elīna Garanča, Magdalena Kožená, Anna Netrebko, René Pape and Patricia Petibon, which is recorded by Deutsche Gram-mophon for release on DVD in the summer of 2008. In autumn Harding takes up his post as Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and also becomes an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist
2007
Takes up his post as music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He conducts Salome with the Scala Orchestra in Milan; Figaro with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and with the Wiener Philharmoniker at the Salzburg Festival; and Billy Budd with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican. European tours with the Dresden Staatskapelle, London Symphony Orchestra (also Far East) and Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Concerts with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm; with the Wiener Philharmoniker at the Salzburg Festival, in Vienna and Frankfurt; and with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. He concludes the year with two New Year’s Concerts with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin
2008
Appearances include concerts with the Orchestre National de France, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm (including Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Anne Sofie von Otter, and Haydn’s The Creation with Thomas Quasthoff) and Spain, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in Italy, Spain, Greece, Austria, Germany and at the Lucerne Festival, on tour with the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in a performance of Verdi’s Requiem with Bryn Terfel at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, the Berliner Philharmoniker, Dresden Staatskapelle, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Wiener Philharmoniker, Filarmonica della Scala, Tokyo Philharmonic, and the Sony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Opera performances include Bartók’s Bluebeard and Dallapiccola’s Prigioniero at La Scala. In his debut release for Deutsche Grammophon Daniel Harding conducts the Wiener Philharmoniker in Mahler’s Tenth Symphony. Autumn sees the release of Amoureuses, a selection of arias by Mozart, Haydn and Gluck in which Patricia Petibon is accompanied by Concerto Köln under Daniel Harding’s baton. On DVD: A Mozart Gala from Salzburg with Magdalena Kožená, Anna Netrebko, René Pape, Patricia Petibon and the Wiener Philharmoniker
2009
The year opens with performances of Don Giovanni with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Luleå Festival in Sweden, followed by concerts with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm, Brussels and Italy, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra on tour in Europe, the New Japan Philharmonic in Japan, the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, in Milan, Germany and the US, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and on European tour, the Berliner Philharmoniker, and the Filarmonica della Scala; Figaro with the Wiener Philharmoniker at the Salzburg Festival
2010
Concerts with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm, in Paris and Germany (with Hélène Grimaud) and on a Far East tour; the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in Wozzeck at the Vienna Festival, on European tours in Verdi’s Otello and Mendelssohn’s Elijah (with Thomas Quasthoff), and in concerts at the Lucerne Festival and in Salzburg, Germany, Italy, Spain and Abu Dhabi; with the Dresden Staatskapelle; the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, Paris and the Lucerne Festival; and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, Berlin’s Musikfest and Leipzig’s Mendelssohn Festival, and on tour of Spain. His second Deutsche Grammophon recording featuring Orff’s Carmina Burana with Patricia Petibon, Siegfried Jerusalem, Christian Gerhaher and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is planed for release in the Summer
3/2010