LA Phil names Daniel Harding music director
DISCUSSING A CONDUCTOR’S ROLE are (from left) Kim Noltemy, Daniel Harding, and Acting Concertmaster Bing Wang.
After years of anticipation, the Los Angeles Philharmonic announced Daniel Harding as their new music director. He follows Gustavo Dudamel, who will join the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in September. Harding and Dudamel are friends, and their great admiration and affection for one another was evident at a welcome event held on the stage of Walt Disney Concert Hall. Tasked with introducing Harding, Dudamel said, “This is a very, very special moment. A moment of a lot of happiness. Daniel is a good friend and an immense artist. To have a chance to pass the baton to him is very emotional. Our beloved Phil is going to be in good hands.”
After the jovial and energetic Harding bounded onto the stage, he discussed the conductor’s role with LA Phil President and CEO Kim Noltemy and Acting Concertmaster Bing Wang, both of whom had been on the search committee to find Dudamel’s successor.
Wang said that a conductor is like the director of a film, taking the musicians and the audience on a journey—and each journey is different, even though “the notes are the same, the score is the same.” She explained, “We usually get a sense of the person. We feel immense connection and so much magic, so much give-and-take.” Orchestra members overwhelmingly supported the selection of Harding for the position.
GUSTAVO DUDAMEL introduces Daniel Harding.
Harding reflected on conducting. “It’s never the same,” he said. “Even with the same musicians in the same concert hall, the world is different. I hear something in my head, but it’s never going to be the music I had in my head. One suggestion from an oboe player changes it!”
The youthful 50-year-old British-born Harding has had an international career, starting when he was just a teen. At 17, the conducting prodigy and trumpeter was tapped to be the assistant to Sir Simon Rattle, then the acclaimed conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. At 21, he first conducted L.A.’s orchestra at the Ojai Music Festival in 1997. He spent years conducting in Sweden, London, Berlin, and Vienna, and succeeded Yo-Yo Ma at the Pan-Asian youth orchestra program in China, making him uniquely qualified to build on the success of Dudamel’s LA Phil initiative, Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), which he plans to send on a world tour. Harding currently lives in France but is the music director of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. When not in the orchestra pit, Harding can be found in the cockpit as a pilot for Air France!
In the inaugural 2027/28 season of his six-year contract, Harding will conduct for eight weeks, increasing to 12 weeks in subsequent seasons. However, he is on board for six concerts before then, with the first scheduled for Fri., Nov. 6, which will feature Johannes Brahms’ “Second Piano Concerto” and Betsy Jolas’ “Latest.”
Harding joins an enhanced artistic leadership team that includes Dudamel as Artistic and Cultural Laureate of the LA Phil and Founding Director of YOLA, Creative Director Essa-Pekka Salonen, and Conductor-in-Residence Anna Handler.
Audience experience
At a reception after the May 27 welcome event, Harding was asked how he will interact with the audience. He said he has sometimes talked before lifting the baton but thinks the start of a piece of music is like the exciting moment before a film begins. “I loved sitting in the dark as a kid waiting for the movie to start, then the curtains parted and the movie began! I like the symphony to be like that.” Visit laphil.org.
Category: Entertainment
