Born in Oxford, Daniel Harding began his career assisting Sir Simon Rattle at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with which he made his professional début in 1994. He went on to assist Claudio Abbado at the Berlin Philharmonic and made his début with the orchestra at the 1996 Berlin Festival.
In 2003 he became the first music director of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. His previous positions include principal conductor of the Trondheim Symphony in Norway (1997–2000), principal guest conductor of Sweden’s Norrköping Symphony (1997–2003) and music director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (1997–2003). His appointment as principal guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra began at the start of the 2006/07 season, and as music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra from January 2007.
He is a regular visitor to the Dresden Staatskapelle, which he conducted at the 2003 Salzburg Festival, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, Rotterdam Philharmonic and Frankfurt Radio Orchestras. Other guest conducting engagements have included the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, Oslo Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées. In the United States and Canada he has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago, Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston and Toronto Symphony Orchestras.
He made his début with the Vienna Philharmonic conducting Mahler’s Symphony No 10 and returned for Bach’s St Matthew Passion. His operatic experience includes new productions of Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, The Turn of the Screw, La Traviata and Eugene Onegin, all at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and a production of Jenůfa for Welsh National Opera.
He made his début at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2002, with The Turn of the Screw and at the Bavarian State Opera in Die Entführung aus dem Serail. In December 2005 he opened the season at La Scala, Milan making his début at the house conducting Idomeneo and he subsequently returned to Covent Garden to conduct Berg’s Wozzeck, with further operatic engagements in Vienna, Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence and La Scala.
Daniel Harding has made a number of award-winning recordings. In 2002 he was awarded the title Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.