Hailing from an artistic Swiss family, Philippe Jordan is considered one of the most distinguished and established conductors of his generation. His international career has taken him to the leading opera houses, festivals, and concert halls around the world. Beginning with the 2027/28 season, he becomes music director of the Orchestre National de France.
Jordan served as music director of the Vienna State Opera from September 2020 until June 2025, leading numerous new productions, including Madama Butterfly, Parsifal, Macbeth, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Tristan and Isolde, Salome, and Il trittico. He placed special artistic emphasis on a new cycle of the Mozart–Da Ponte trilogy. In his final season, 2024/25, he conducted new productions of Don Carlo and Tannhäuser, as well as revivals of the cycle of Mozart’s works and Wagner’s Ring cycle. In the summer of 2025, he returned to the Salzburg Festival to conduct Macbeth.
In the 2025/26 season Jordan conducts Der Rosenkavalier with the Vienna State Opera on tour in Japan. Additional concert engagements take him to the Orchestre National de France, Opéra de Paris, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Staatskapelle Dresden, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Region of Valencia, and the San Francisco and Atlanta symphony orchestras. In Asia, he guest conducts the Seoul and Hong Kong philharmonics and the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo.
Jordan’s artistic journey began as kapellmeister at the Theater Ulm and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. From 2001 to 2004, he was principal conductor of the Graz Opera and the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra, at which time he also debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; the Royal Opera House in London; Teatro alla Scala; the Bavarian and Vienna state operas; Festspielhaus Baden-Baden; and the festivals in Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne, and Salzburg. From 2006 to 2010, he was principal guest conductor of the Berlin State Opera. He made his Bayreuth Festival debut in 2012 with Parsifal.
Philippe Jordan was music director of the Opéra de Paris from 2009 to 2021 and chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony from 2014 to 2020.
As a concert conductor, Philippe Jordan has collaborated with the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Munich Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, and the Orchestre National de France. The major North American orchestras include the symphonies of Boston, Seattle, St. Louis, Dallas, Detroit, and San Francisco; the Minnesota, Cleveland, and Philadelphia orchestras; and the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics.
October 2025
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSO by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
