Around the Music Festival

The Rome-based Orchestra of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia has announced that British conductor Daniel Harding will be its next music director. He succeeds Antonio Pappano, who has been in the position since 2005 and will retire in 2023.

Harding’s term of office is for five years, beginning in 2024. Harding has been music director and artistic director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2007 and will retire in 2025, when his term expires.

Harding, 47, was born in Oxford. He was an assistant to Simon Rattle while at music high school, and made his professional debut conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1994 while a student at Cambridge University. He was later recognized by Claudio Abbado and made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1996, and was also the youngest conductor to appear at the BBC Proms.

He has served as music director of the Bremen German Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra (1999-2003) and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (2004-). He was also music director of the Orchestre de Paris from 2016-2019, but stepped down “to become a pilot,” and since then he has tried to take the pilot’s exam for passenger aircraft, and has actually been working as a pilot for Air France since 2020.

The Orchestra has a tradition of opening its season with an opera concert, and Harding will conduct “Tosca” in 2024, the 100th anniversary of Puccini’s death. The long-established Deutsche Grammophon label has announced that it is embarking on a new combination of recordings, the first of which will be a recording.

Photo：BBC　/　Chris Christodoulou


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