(Credit: Julian Hargreaves)

The Swedish Radio Orchestra has announced that Daniel Harding will extend his post as the orchestra’s Music Director until 2025.

“Since the very beginning of my conducting career, I have been surrounded by musicians, collaborators and friends of exceptional generosity, talent and wisdom. I understood very early on that important and lasting musical relationships are forged over many years.  2022 marks my fifteen-year anniversary as Music Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. When I came to Stockholm in January 2007, none of us could have known how our futures would unfold, as musicians, as humans, as individuals and as a group. It is one of the immense satisfactions and inspirations of my musical life that I am still here and still enjoying a sense of honeymoon with these truly exceptional musicians,” said Harding in an official statement.

“There is no doubt that here in Stockholm, in Berwaldhallen, I have found my musical family. The bond between us is immense and the spark that we had at the start seems only brighter and more intense. The role of Music Director is a very important one. Week in, week out, over many years, slowly and patiently working with the same musicians to create an identity, a sense of musical priority and perspective, a deep understanding of one another and the music we play, a trust and exchange with a public. It is a kind of work where the goal is never the concert of the week but the slow and certain construction of something that can only be fully appreciated with hindsight.”

Harding previously held the posts of Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. The British conductor has performed in such opera houses as Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Theater an der Wien, among many others.

Harding regularly performs with the Vienna Philharmonic, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Milan’s Filarmonica della Scala, among others.