Edward Gardner OBE is Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Chief Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he will relinquish at the end of the 2023 / 24 season. Having commenced the role of Artistic Advisor of the Norwegian Opera and Ballet in February 2022, he will hold the company’s Music Directorship from August 2024. In demand as a guest conductor, he has most recently worked with the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Wiener Symphoniker, and Staatskapelle Berlin. He has also enjoyed return engagements with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Philharmonia Orchestra, and Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano. He has continued his longstanding collaborations with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where he was Principal Guest Conductor from 2010 to 2016, and BBC Symphony Orchestra, whom he has conducted at both the First and the Last Night of the BBC Proms.

Music Director of English National Opera for eight years (2007 – 15), Edward Gardner has an ongoing relationship with The Metropolitan Opera, New York, where he has conducted productions of La Damnation de Faust, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Der Rosenkavalier, and Werther. In London he will continue his work with The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, where he made his début in 2019, in a new production of Kát’a Kabanová, and the following season returned to conduct Werther. During the 2021 / 22 season, he made his début with Bayerische Staatsoper, in a new production of Peter Grimes. Elsewhere, he has conducted at Teatro alla Scala, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and Opéra national de Paris. A passionate supporter of young talent, he 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, and with the Royal Academy of Music which appointed him its inaugural Sir Charles Mackerras Conducting Chair in 2014.