Edward Gardner is principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and chief conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic, a position he will relinquish after the 2023-24 season. In August 2024, he will become music director of the Norwegian Opera and Ballet, after assuming the role there of artistic director in February 2022.
During the 2021-22 season, he conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 11 concerts at the Royal Festival Hall, including five U.K. premieres. He opened the season with a concert version of Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage, for which the London Philharmonic Choir was joined by the English National Opera Chorus. He opened the Bergen Philharmonic season with a performance of John Adams’ Harmonium. Gardner also is chief conductor of the Edvard Grieg Choir and is conducting at least two concert productions each season there from 2021 to 2024.
Music director of English National Opera from 2007 to 2015, Gardner 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 future 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 next season. In 2021-22, he made his debut with Bayerische Staatsoper in a new production of Peter Grimes. Elsewhere, he has conducted at La Scala, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Opéra National de Paris.
A passionate supporter of young talent, Gardner 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 of Music, and with the Royal Academy of Music, which appointed him as the inaugural Sir Charles Mackerras Conducting Chair in 2014.
Born in Gloucester in 1974, 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 honors such as Royal Philharmonic Society Award Conductor of the Year (2008), an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera (2009) and an OBE for Services to Music during the Queen’s Birthday Honors (2012).
January 2022
