Live Sibelius One Fri 7 – Sat 8 May

Edward Gardner is Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director of The Norwegian Opera and Ballet.

He additionally serves as Honorary Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, following his tenure as Chief Conductor from 2015 to 2024. Edward opens his second season as Music Director of The Norwegian Opera and Ballet with Rusalka and concert performances of Kurtag’s Fin de Partie. In Spring 2026 he will conduct Don Carlos and Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo & Juliet. The season also includes concert  performances of Wagner’s Ring without Words and next season the opera house will begin their journey towards a complete Ring cycle in the 2028/29 season.

During his fifth season with the LPO, he will conduct ten concerts at the Royal Festival Hall as well as five concerts in South Korea and a tour of major cities in Germany including Munich, Dresden, Cologne, Frankfurt and Hamburg. Highlights of their London season include Mahler’s 4th Symphony, modern classics by George Benjamin and Hans Abrahamson, a focus on central European music by Lutoslawski, Janacek, Szymanowski culminating with Bartok’s The Wooden Prince, and they close the season with a concert staging of Berg’s Wozzeck.

In demand as a guest conductor, this season he returns to several orchestras in the USA including Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony and makes his debut with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In Europe he conducts Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, WDR Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and in Tokyo he makes his debut with Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.

Debuts in recent seasons include New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, Staatskapelle Berlin, and Wiener Symphoniker; with re-invitations to Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala. In the UK he has had longstanding collaborations with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where he was Principal Guest Conductor from 2010-16, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, whom he has conducted at both the First and Last Night of the BBC Proms.

An acclaimed opera conductor, in Spring 2025 Edward was re-invited to the Royal Opera House to conduct the acclaimed world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage Festen having made his Covent Garden debut with a new production of Káťa Kabanová. In June 2025 he returned to Bayerische Staatsoper for Rusalka, following his debut with Peter Grimes in 2022 and Verdi Otello in 2023 and he will conduct several productions there in the coming seasons. In Summer 2026 he conducts a new production of Suor Angelica and La mort de Cléopâtre at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl directed by Deborah Warner.

Music Director of English National Opera for eight years (2007-15), he also built a strong relationship with The Metropolitan Opera with productions of Damnation of Faust, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Der Rosenkavalier and Werther. Elsewhere, he has conducted at La Scala, Chicago Lyric Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Opéra National de Paris.

Edward Gardner has an extensive discography, with critically acclaimed recent live recordings of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer (Decca) featuring star singers Lise Davidsen and Gerald Finley with Norwegian National Opera and Salome (Chandos) with Bergen Philharmonic at the Edinburgh Festival. His numerous Chandos recordings with the Bergen Philharmonic include works by Brahms, Sibelius, Nielsen, Grieg, Bartók, Schoenberg, and Britten, as well as a Grammy-nominated recording of Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass. The London Philharmonic’s recording label is celebrating its 20th anniversary with several releases of Gardner’s concert repertoire, including Rachmaninov, Britten, Dvořák, and Schumann, and the third in his Tippett series following their Gramophone Opera Award-winning recording of Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage.

A passionate supporter of young talent, he founded the Hallé Youth Orchestra in 2002 and regularly conducts the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He has a close relationship with the Juilliard School of Music, and with the Royal Academy of Music who appointed him their inaugural Sir Charles Mackerras Conducting Chair in 2014.

Born in Gloucester in 1974, Edward was educated at Cambridge and the Royal Academy of Music and gained early recognition as Assistant Conductor of The Hallé and Music Director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera. His many accolades include the Royal Philharmonic Society Conductor of the Year Award (2008), an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera (2009) and an OBE for Services to Music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours (2012).

See Edward Gardner conduct Sibelius One with the RSNO on 6, 7 and 8 May 2027.

Lauded by The Guardian for her “dark and focused” voice, “sensational coloratura” and “spectacular singing” and by The Times for her “fierce, indeed terrifying, cane-swishing” characterisations, Beth Taylor is one of today’s most electrifying young mezzo-sopranos. 

In the 2025/26 season, she is set to make a number of notable debuts and returns. She will make her Carnegie Hall debut in May 2025 with the English Concert and Harry Bicket, performing her acclaimed interpretation of Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare on tour across the US and UK. She will also make her debut with the LA Philharmonic in Mahler’s 2nd Symphony tour in LA, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei and Tainan, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.  

She returns to the BBC Proms as the soloist in Mahler’s 3rd Symphony with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales/ Ryan Bancroft. Other upcoming performances include Elgar’s Sea Pictures with Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal/Rafael Payare,, Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the Müncher Philharmoniker. With the Berlin Philharmonic/K.Petrenko, she will perform Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and Mahler’s 8th Symphony and with Bach’s B minor Mass with Raphaël Pichon. With Sir Simon Rattle, she performs Mahler’s 2nd Symphony with the Bayerisches Runfunksorchester,  

Upcoming performances in the UK include Tippett’s A Child of our Time with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ryan Wigglesworth and Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the London Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Gardner. Her recent performances as the Angel in Dream of  Gerontius with the BBC SSO were remarked on by the Times as “immensely powerful, with melting quality and electrifying musicality…a natural successor to Janet Baker” and “her farewell providing one of  those moments of transcendence that even the greatest art produces only rarely”.  

Over the last several years, the mezzo has made a number of important debuts. In summer 2022, Beth made her acclaimed debut at the Glyndebourne Festival as Bradamante in a new production of Alcina and as Cornelia in the well-loved revival of Giulio Cesare. Following her Deutsche Oper Berlin debut as La Cieca in La Gioconda, she returned to this theatre to make her role debuts as Arsace in in a new production of Rossini’s Semiramide, as Erda in Das Rheingold, Erste Norn in Götterdämmerung and Schwertleite in Die Walküre in Stefan Herheim’s new Ring cycle under the musical direction of Sir Donald Runnicles. Her recent debut in the title role of Cenerentola with the Opéra de Lorraine received huge accolades for her “bold, unique and polished interpretation of an otherwise not immediately obvious role for her voice-type” and “radiant coloratura”. 

On disc, she can be heard in the Mozart’s Requiem and J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor with Ensemble Pygmalion and Raphaël Pichon on Harmonia Mundi International label. She will also feature with the same label as soloist with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie with Haydn’s Harmoniemesse On Warner/Erato label, she features in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (Sorceress) and Handel’s Giulio Cesare (Cornelia) with Il Pomo d’Oro, conducted by Maxim Emelyanychev and Francesco Corti respectively. Her debut recital album “The Deeps have Music” with friend and collaborative pianist Hamish  Brown will be released on Linn Records in early 2026. 

She is a grand finalist of the 2023 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, the winner of the 2022 Elizabeth Connell Award, 3rd prize winner of the 2019 Wigmore Hall Competition and the winner of the 2018 Gianni Bergamo Classical Music Awards. She was shortlised for the “Newcomer” award at the International Opera Awards 2023. 

See Beth Taylor perform throughout the 2026:27 Season with the RSNO.

Born in Huddersfield in 1964, Paul Whittaker has been profoundly deaf all his life yet pursued a career as a musician. A pianist and organist, he has a music degree from Wadham College, Oxford, a postgraduate performance diploma from the Royal Northern College of Music and holds ALCM and ARCO diplomas.

In 1988, he founded Music and the Deaf, a charity to help deaf people enjoy music, which he ran for 27 years. In 2007, he was awarded an OBE for Services to Music and he also holds honorary degrees from the University of Huddersfield and Open University.

For the past 13 years, Paul has been working with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra on their Feel the Music project, visiting many different countries around the world introducing deaf children to orchestral music. In 2023, he was invited to work with the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin on a project involving deaf children and adults and in 2024 will work with an ensemble in Malmo on a similar project.

Since May 2015 he has been working freelance as a motivational speaker, signed song performer and workshop leader, and currently runs several signing choirs across the UK.

Paul has signed many musical shows and concerts, and performed with The King’s Singers, Tenebrae, Dunedin Consort, VOCES8, the Royal Liverpool, Royal Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber, Royal Northern Sinfonia and Halle orchestras, with Children’s Classic Concerts and at many festivals, including the Cumnock Tryst and BBC Proms. He is delighted to be returning to the RSNO after joining them last November for James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio.

See Paul Whittaker perform Ode to Joy on 12 and 13 June 2026.