Sir Mark Elder will take up the position of music director of the Palau de Les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia in September 2025. He was music director of the Hallé from 2000 to 2024 and is now conductor emeritus. He became principal guest conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2022. He was music director of English National Opera (1979-1993), principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1982-1985) and of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1992-1995) and music director of Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (1989-1994) in New York.
He has worked with many of the world’s leading symphony orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, Budapest Festival Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra. He is a principal artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and works regularly with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He has appeared annually at the Proms for many years, including in 1987 and 2006, the internationally televised Last Night of the Proms and from 2003 with the Hallé Orchestra.
He works regularly in the most prominent international opera houses, including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera New York, Opéra National de Paris, Lyric Opera Chicago, Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Other guest engagements have taken him to the Bayreuth Festival (where he was the first English conductor to conduct a new production), Munich, Amsterdam, Zürich, Geneva, Berlin and the Bregenz and Aix Festivals.
Sir Mark Elder has made many recordings with orchestras including the Hallé, London Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony, the OAE, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and ENO, in repertoire ranging rom Verdi, Strauss and Wagner to contemporary music. In 2003, the Hallé launched its own CD label and releases have met with universal critical acclaim culminating in Gramophone Awards for The Dream of Gerontius in 2009 and Götterdämmerung and Elgar’s Violin Concerto in 2010 and The Apostles won Recording of the Year in the 2013 BBC Music Magazine Awards. The recent release of Siegfried has completed his Ring cycle on disc with the Hallé and the complete cycle of Vaughan Williams symphonies is now available. A live recording of Lohengrin has been released by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; LSO Live has recently released Meyerbeer’s Le prophete recorded live at the Aix Festival.
TV appearances include a two-part film on the life and music of Verdi for BBC TV in 1994 and a similar project on Donizetti for German television in 1996. In November 2011, he co-presented BBCTV’s four-part series “Symphony,” and in 2012 fronted BBC2’s TV series Maestro at the Opera. He presented a series of TV programs on BBC4 during the 2015 Proms in which he talked about eight symphonies ranging from Beethoven to MacMillan featuring performances from the season’s concerts.
He was artistic director of Opera Rara from 2011 to 2019 for whom his many recordings have included Donizetti’s Dom Sebastien, Imelda di Lambertazzi, Linda di Chamounix, Maria di Rohan, a multi award winning releases of Les Martyrs, Rossini’s Semiramide, and most recently, the 1857 version of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra.
Future concerts engagements include the London Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Boston Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, the Hallé in Manchester and at the Proms, and Aldeburgh and Edinburgh festivals and Bergen Philharmonic. Recent and forthcoming opera engagements include Carmen at the Opéra National de Paris, Benvenuto Cellini for Netherlands Opera, Meistersinger for San Francisco Opera, Billy Budd, Falstaff and La Traviata for Glyndebourne and concert performances of Lohengrin with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He opened the Met season in New York in September 2018 with a new production of Samson et Dalila and returned to Covent Garden in 2022 for a new production of Peter Grimes and in 2023, he conducted Aida and La Forza del Destino at Covent Garden and Meyerbeer’s Le prophète with the LSO at the Aix Festival.
Sir Mark Elder was appointed a Companion of Honor in the 2017 Queen’s Birthday Honors, was knighted in 2008 and awarded the CBE in 1989. He won an Olivier Award in 1991 for his outstanding work at ENO; in May 2006, he was named Conductor of the Year by the Royal Philharmonic Society. He was awarded honorary membership in the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2011.
May 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.
