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The Los Angeles The Philharmonic has announced that Daniel Harding will be its next music director.
UK-born Harding, 50, will take up his role in the 2027/28 season, on an initial six-year deal. Gustavo Dudamel, the orchestra’s music director since 2009, will leave this position in August 2026 – the Venezuelan lover is going east to become music and artistic director. New York Philharmonicbut they will still have close relationships Los Angeles orchestra as a champion of art and culture.
In his new role, Harding will oversee the organization’s entire program, including shows at the Walt Disney concert hall, the Hollywood Bowl and the Ford, Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (Yola). He will do eight weeks of the program in his first season, increasing to 12 weeks in subsequent years. The orchestra was founded in 1919 and has commissioned and performed music by composers ranging from Stravinsky and Schoenberg to Lutosławski and John Adams. Over the past 14 years, Dudamel has won 11 Grammy Awards.
President and CEO Kim Noltemy said: “We are proud to welcome Daniel Harding as the next music director of the LA Phil, following a thorough search led by a committee of our musicians, band and staff. His incoming voice is directly aligned with the LA Phil’s mission and vision.”
“Making music with L.A. musicians is exciting and inspiring,” Harding said. “To receive the legacy of the orchestra and culture that includes Giulini (music director 1978-1984) and Mehta (1962-1978) and recently created by Esa-Pekka Salonen (1992-2009) and Gustavo, is a wonderful gift. I have come to California full of joy and creating together what we will achieve.”
Harding was born in Oxford in 1975. As a teenager he met Simon Rattle, who hired him as an assistant at. City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for a year. At the age of 21, he joined the Berlin Philharmonic as Claudio Abbado’s assistant. That same year he became the youngest conductor in the history of the Proms.
His subsequent career includes 19 years with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and more than two decades with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, which he helped found. He was principal guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 2007-2017, and enjoys long-established relationships with the Berlin Philharmonic, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the Vienna Philharmonic. A well-known opera lover, he has led famous orchestras at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the Wiener Staatsoper, London’s Royal. Opera House also at the festival of Aix-en-Provence and the festival of Salzburg.
He is currently music director at Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and, in the US, has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony. He made his LA Phil debut in 1997 at the Ojai Music Festival in a program of works by Mozart, Schnittke, Schubert and Rameau.
Harding is a qualified pilot, and for the past few years has held a similar role flying Airbuses for Air France, and will continue to do so. “One of the things I say about my superficial life,” told the Guardian in 2022“and that there is no problem doing dangerous things in concerts, because there it is safe to do so.”
“(What) I like about going to Air France is that I wear my uniform… he added.
“Daniel brings a unique passion and musical awareness to his work,” said John Lofton, bassist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and a member of the director’s search committee. As musicians, we appreciate his clarity, his respect for the orchestra and the way he invites us to sing.”
Dudamel said: “I am confident that the intelligence, heart and boundless talent of the LA Phil, which has inspired me for so many years, will be in good hands under Daniel’s musical leadership as they build a new world of sound together.”
The band’s music director and former music director Salonen said: “Daniel is one of the most interesting people of today… My hope is that the beauty, optimism and openness of Los Angeles will prove to be as transformative for him as it has been for me. I look forward to working with him in the future.”
As music director, Harding will conduct the LA Phil in November 2026 and January 2027 in a diverse program that includes music by Brahms, Bernstein’s Jeremiah symphony, Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and contemporary composers Thomas Adès and Betsy Jolas.
