Last Friday, I put the odds of Daniel Harding becoming the next Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at “75% and climbing.” Well, the odds are at 100% as of this morning.
Moments ago, the orchestra announced that Mr. Harding will be its 12th Music Director, officially beginning his tenure with the 2027-28 season, following in the footsteps of luminaries such as Otto Klemperer, Eduard Van Beinum, Zubin Mehta, and Carlo Maria Giulini, to name a few.
Mr. Harding’s is already scheduled to conduct two weeks of subscription concerts during the upcoming 2026-27 season at Walt Disncy Concert Hall. He will conduct 8 weeks during his inaugural season, increasing to 12 weeks thereafter.
The now 50-year old Englishman made his American conducting debut with the LA Phil at the 1997 Ojai Festival when he was just 21-years old. His regular season debut with the orchestra was at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion the following year.
The full press release is below and also HERE. Quotes from Gustavo Dudamel (outgoing Music Director), Esa-Pekka Salonen (previous Music Director, current Conductor Laureate, and soon-to-be Creative Director), and Anna Handler (incoming Conductor-in-Residence) are included near the bottom.
HERE is my breakdown on why I thought he was the likely pick — and a solid pick at that. I’ve been told a press conference will be held tomorrow at 4:30pm. More thoughts and analysis from me to come after that, so come back here on All is Yar.
For now, let me say congratulations to the LA Phil and Mr. Harding — and add that it’s good to be right. Again.
RELATED POSTS:
- Who’ll be the next LA Phil Music Director? Handicapping 10 potential candidates (May 2026 edition) (May 22, 2026)
- I was (mostly) right: LA Phil gives Salonen new title, answers some follow-up questions (September 8, 2025)
- Comings and goings at the LA Phil (Summer 2024 edition, pt. 1): which conductors new CEO Kim Noltemy could — and should — consider as Music Director candidates (July 9, 2024)
| LOS ANGELES, May 26, 2026 — Kim Noltemy, LA Phil President & Chief Executive Officer and David C. Bohnett CEO Chair, and Jason Subotky, LA Phil Board Chair, announced today the appointment of Daniel Harding as the next Music Director of the LA Phil. Harding’s tenure will begin in the 2027/28 season. As Music Director, Harding will oversee the orchestral programming across the organization, including its presentations at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl and The Ford, along with Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA). He will lead the LA Phil in its ambitious commitment to commissioning new works and in expanding the orchestra’s global presence through touring, media projects, and new ventures for international collaboration and cultural exchange. Harding will conduct eight weeks of programming in his inaugural 2027/28 season, increasing to 12 weeks of programming in subsequent years. Noltemy said, “We are immensely proud to welcome Daniel Harding as the LA Phil’s next Music Director, following an extensive search led by a committee of our musicians, board, and staff. He is greatly admired by the orchestra and was the overwhelming choice based on their feedback. His intellectual curiosity, passion for bringing in and engaging with new audiences, global perspective and talent for nurturing emerging voices directly align with the LA Phil’s mission and vision. We are eager for Daniel to join our leadership team and open new pathways for creativity, collaboration and connection with our audiences and our city.” Daniel Harding said, “Making music with the magnificent LA Phil musicians is a thrill and an inspiration. Over recent years, the LA Phil has developed something extraordinary that cannot be manufactured: a kind of institutional charisma. That expands the vision of what you ask when thinking about what comes next, for the orchestra, for Los Angeles, for music and for our community.” Harding continued, “Perhaps the hardest task in music is to take something already exceptional and to help it grow further. Inheriting an orchestra with a tradition that includes Giulini and Mehta and shaped most recently by Esa-Pekka and Gustavo is an extraordinary gift. So many great artists have found possibilities here that don’t exist anywhere else, and I come to California full of excitement for what we will discover and create together.” With this appointment, Harding will spearhead the LA Phil’s evolving artistic leadership team, comprised of the recent additions of Creative Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, Conductor-in-Residence Anna Handler and Gustavo Dudamel, who last week was appointed to the new positions of Artistic and Cultural Laureate of the LA Phil and Founding Director and Conductor Laureate of YOLA. The group joins longtime Creative Chair John Adams, Creative Chair for Jazz Herbie Hancock, Artist Collaborator Emmanuelle Haïm, Principal Conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra Thomas Wilkins, and Conductor Emeritus Zubin Mehta. Within the next year, this illustrious assembly will be completed with the appointments of two new positions: Creative Chair for Latin Music, representing the LA Phil’s continued investment in supporting Latin artists; and Creative Chair for Film, fostering deeper connections between the worlds of film and music. Subotky added, “Out of the remarkable group of conductors we considered, Daniel Harding stood out through the magical connection he formed with our musicians and audiences. His conducting genius has been widely hailed since the start of his career, and we are equally impressed by his vision for the role of Music Director in Los Angeles and his desire to connect to our community. We are thrilled to welcome Daniel to the LA Phil family.” Among Harding’s stated priorities is a deep investment in YOLA, with plans underway for an international YOLA tour marking the Frank Gehry centennial in 2029. The LA Phil will also expand access to music education with a commitment to LA County public schools, including performances and interactive workshops designed to expose young people to the power of learning through music, with a focus on schools with dual-language education programs. Harding is acclaimed for his artistic leadership and craftsmanship, building the standards and reputations of the orchestras with which he has worked through his rigor, dynamism and creativity. His repertoire is wide-ranging, from award-winning recordings of baroque music through to countless premieres of new works. He is recognized for his interpretations of works from across the symphonic spectrum, from Mahler, Mozart and Britten to contemporary composers such as Thomas Adès and Unsuk Chin. As a renowned opera conductor, Harding will bring his experience from great opera houses to the stages in LA, committing to boundary-pushing collaborations and presenting semi-staged operas and works beyond the concert hall aimed at illuminating and demystifying music for new audiences. Daniel Harding is currently Music Director of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He was the Artistic and Music Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and following his tenure was named Conductor Laureate of both orchestras. He previously served as Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra for ten years. In 2024, he succeeded Yo-Yo Ma as leader of a Pan-Asian youth orchestra program (YMCG) in China. “Daniel brings an exceptional level of focus and musical insight to his work,” said John Lofton, bass trombone of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and member of the Music Director search committee. “As musicians, we value his clarity, his respect for the orchestra, and the way he invites us into the music. There’s a real sense of shared purpose in what he does, and that’s energizing for all of us.” Dudamel said, “I have a deep admiration for Daniel’s artistry, and for the profound connection he has built with the musicians of the LA Phil over the years. I’m confident that the brilliance, heart and limitless talent of this orchestra, which has inspired me for so many years, will be in good hands under his musical leadership as they build new worlds of sound together.” Salonen said, “Daniel is absolutely one of the most important conductors of our time. With his appointment as Music Director, the orchestra has put a key piece of its artistic leadership in place. My hope is that the beauty, optimism and openness of Los Angeles prove as transformative for Daniel as it has been for me. I look forward to collaborating with him well into the future.” Handler said, “One of the reasons I joined the artistic leadership team at the LA Phil was the vision of forging a brilliant, multifaceted creative team that is unprecedented in our field. With Daniel, as well as Gustavo, Esa-Pekka, Emmanuelle and John Adams — artists whom I respect deeply for their unconditional service to our art form – there’s no limit to the spectacular things we can imagine and create together for our audiences.” In the LA Phil’s 2026/27 season, Harding will lead the Brahms Second Piano Concerto with Leif Ove Andsnes, Leonard Bernstein’s “Jeremiah” symphony with mezzo-soprano Avery Amereau and Betsy Jolas’s Latest in November 2026, and a program featuring Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel Symphony and Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra in January 2027. ***Press Contacts:Leah Price, leah.price@laphil.org |
| ABOUT DANIEL HARDING Daniel Harding was born in Oxford in 1975. As a teenager, he persuaded his school friends to play for him — not Mozart or Haydn, but fiercely complex twentieth-century music. Simon Rattle was impressed enough to invite him to Birmingham as his assistant. Claudio Abbado brought him to Berlin shortly after. He came to international attention in 1998 when he conducted Don Giovanni at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in a Peter Brook production. He was twenty-two. His subsequent career was built on long relationships rather than the rapid accumulation of engagements. Nineteen years with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Decades with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, which he helped found. Ten years as Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. More than thirty years of appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic, and more than twenty with the Vienna Philharmonic. He served as Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris before taking up his current position at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, one of the world’s oldest musical institutions. Beginning with the 2027/28 season he becomes Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is a Grammy winner and an airline pilot for a major European carrier. A Commander of the British Empire, Daniel Harding is also an Officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. ABOUT THE LA PHILThe LA Phil offers live performances, media initiatives, and learning programs that inspire and strengthen communities in Los Angeles and beyond. The Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra is the foundation of the LA Phil’s offerings, which also include a multi-genre, multidisciplinary presenting program and such youth development programs as YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles). Performances are offered across four historic venues—Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, The Ford, and Beckmen YOLA Center—as well as through a variety of media platforms. In all its endeavors, the LA Phil seeks to enrich the lives of individuals and communities through musical, artistic and learning experiences that resonate in our world today. |
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Photo credit: Polly Brown
All is Yar 
You were right!!! You must have terrific sources within the orchestra. Congratulations on your pick, and maybe we in the press will get a lift to Paris with the Phil on tour —on the jet that Harding will pilot!
Take care; Rick
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Thanks, Rick! Honestly, no one told me in advance nor did they even hint at it to me. Just a lot of deduction and induction. . . . Very much hoping you’re right about the trip to Paris!!!!
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Dare to be dull.
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Not a disastrous choice, especially if his job is confined to keeping the orchestra in a good shape, but truly, this is very, very boring…You know what I think already!
Congratulations on the correct prediction!
I wonder how the ticket sales will do in future seasons. Is there anything new Daniel Harding would bring? Will he be anything other than a status quo caretaker? There is nothing exciting about him. Literally nothing.
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By the way, I’m surprised to read in the LA Times that his Rachmaninoff programs left such a positive impression on the players, because the performance I heard was uninteresting and bloodless. Definitely not one of the better programs I heard that summer.
No matter how you frame this appointment, musically Harding is a definite step-down from Dudamel. And Harding doesn’t even have any special repertoire or extramusical factors to compensate for his mediocre conducting. This and all of the previously speculated choices tell me that whoever is in charge of the search (Umber?) is completely feckless and just wants to go out of her way to accommodate Salonen, who does not deserve such treatment at all.
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That die was cast when Esa-Pekka Sidious was brought back. His boot is now firmly on the throat of the LA Phil.
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Congrats to all! Not exactly unexpected per your strong, insider-informed, predictions but still feels to me a safe “do no harm” pick as he’s more or less not going to to be MD of the 10 weeks EPS & Dudamel choose to do, plus the weeks John Adams wishes to do, etc.
If the goal was collegial collaborator, both on the field and off, he seems a fine choice. As an LA guy largely in NYC now who always makes the effort to hear as many of the touring orchestras as I can stomach, I can say with no BS that ever since the LAPhil returned to regular appearances at Carnegie Hall, no better band has touched that wood…and LA will embrace him and he’ll wear the Phil’s glow like a halo…
And unlike, say the very unlucky NYPhil, I feel the LAPhil has a core sound, a sonic torque that’s been uniquely immune to guest conductors (have we underestimated Martin Chalifour over all this time?!), so to the extent that Harding can re-polish a touch it with some EU wax after 34 years of a more modernistic temperament it will not go unappreciated or unnoticed.
That being said, I know I’ve seen/heard him at least 3-4 times in NYC (on tours and with NYP), and I have little memory of them…
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