SIr Mark Elder is Music Director of the Hallé and works regularly with the world’s leading symphony orchestras and, in the UK, enjoys close associations with both the London Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. In the USA he has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, his most recent project for whom was a three-week Dvorak Festival in June 2009.

He appears frequently in many of the most prominent international opera houses, including Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera New York, and the Opéra National de Paris and was the first British conductor to conduct a new production at the Bayreuth Festival.

Mark Elder has made many recordings with orchestras including the Hallé (on the Hallé own label), LPO, CBSO, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the OAE, ROH and ENO. He has been involved in several TV projects including a film on the life and music of Verdi for BBC TV and a similar project on Donizetti for German television. In September 2006 he conducted the internationally televised Last Night of the Proms.

Recent and forthcoming guest engagements also include the Berlin Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the London Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra and the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

Mark Elder was awarded the CBE in 1989 and knighted in 2008.