Edward Gardner
conductor
Edward Gardner is principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and chief conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic, a position he will relinquish at the end of the 2023-24 season. From August 2024 he will undertake the music directorship of the Norwegian Opera and Ballet, having been their artistic advisor since February 2022.
During the 2023-24 season, Gardner will conduct the London Philharmonic in 10 concerts at the Royal Festival Hall and tour the orchestra in Asia and to major European cities including Paris, Munich, Frankfurt and Hamburg, as well as a mini-residency in Bruges. He will open the LPO season with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Resurrection. Other highlights in London feature his curation of “The Music in You,” a cross-arts spring festival which celebrates artistic expression of all kinds. This opens with Haydn’s The Creation and closes with a dance-influenced program featuring a reinvention of Szymanowski’s ballet Harnasie in collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor.
Gardner will open the Bergen Philharmonic season with Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and season highlights include a mini-Rachmaninoff festival and their final German tour together. He completes his tenure as chief conductor at the closing of the Bergen International Festival, conducting Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, Symphony of a Thousand. The orchestra will be joined by several choirs, including the Edvard Grieg Kor of which Gardner is the principal conductor.
After commencing his role of artistic advisor of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in February 2022, last season saw Gardner conduct a new production of Verdi’s Un ballo in Maschera alongside concert performances of Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust. This season Gardner will conduct a triple bill of Schumann’s song cycle Frauenliebe und–leben, Bartók’s Bluebeard's Castle, and Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy. Future plans with the company include a Ring cycle commencing in spring 2026 and culminating in autumn 2028.
In demand as a guest conductor, recent seasons saw Gardner debut with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and Wiener Symphoniker; while returns included engagements with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Montreal Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Philharmonia Orchestra and Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano. He also continued his longstanding collaborations with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where he was principal guest conductor from 2010 to 2016, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, whom he has conducted at both the First and Last Night of the BBC Proms.
Music director of English National Opera for eight years (2007-15), Gardner built a strong relationship with New York’s Metropolitan Opera where he has conducted productions of Damnation of Faust, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Der Rosenkavalier and Werther. In London he will return to the Royal Opera House where he made his debut in 2019 in a new production of Káťa Kabanová followed by Werther a season later. During the 2021-22 season, Gardner made his debut with Bayerische Staatsoper in a new production of Peter Grimes and returned in the 2022-23 season for a jump-in of Verdi’s Otello. Elsewhere, he has conducted at La Scala, Chicago Lyric Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Opéra National de Paris and this season he will conduct a double bill of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine at Teatro di San Carlo.
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 who appointed him their 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 being named Royal Philharmonic Society Award Conductor of the Year (2008), an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera (2009) and receiving an OBE for Services to Music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours (2012).