Daniel Cohen is the General Music Director of the Staatstheater Darmstadt, having begun his tenure in fall 2018. This season in Darmstadt, he will conduct productions of Fidelio, Die Zauberflöte, and Lohengrin, a ballet production of Le Sacre du Printemps, and a series of symphonic concerts. Recent and upcoming highlights include debuts with the Vienna Symphony conducting Don Quichotte at the Bregenz Festival and with the Norwegian Opera conducting Le Nozze di Figaro; returns to the Teatro Massimo di Palermo with Luigi Pizzi’s production of Idomeneo, the Israeli Opera with Atom Egoyan’s production of Così fan Tutte, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin for Don Giovanni. In addition, Cohen conducts symphony concerts with the Helsingborgs Symphoniorchester, Orchestra del Teatro Massimo di Palermo, and Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa, among others.
Following his successful debut at the Staatsoper Berlin conducting Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Cohen was invited back to conduct performances of Die Zauberflöte and Il barbiere di Siviglia, as well as the revival of Klaus Guth’s production of Britten’s Turn of the Screw. Cohen was also a Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper Berlin beginning in the 2015/16 season, where he conducted numerous performances of operas including Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflöte, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Dornröschen, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Traviata and G.F.Haas’ new opera Morgen und Abend.
Other operatic highlights include an acclaimed debut with the Canadian Opera Company with Christopher Alden’s production of La clemenza di Tito and a new production of Die Zauberflöte with Graham Vick at the Macerata Opera Festival. Cohen frequently works with the Israeli Opera where he has conducted La Cenerentola, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Rigoletto, Otello, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Pique Dame, a Midsummer Night’s Dream and Wozzeck.
Cohen’s symphonic work has brought him to orchestras including the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Dresdner Philharmoniker, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the RTÉ National Symphony in Dublin, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale in Florence, the Israeli Philharmonic, and the Sinfonieorchester Basel.
Contemporary repertoire is of keen interest to Cohen, who was an assistant of Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival Academy. He pursues this passion as Artistic Director of the Gropius Ensemble, where he curates projects specializing in the synthesis of music and theatre, with actor and co-founder Itay Tiran. Cohen has also collaborated with members of the London Symphony Orchestra on multiple occasions as part of their LSO Soundhub program for young composers.
While still a student at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Cohen was appointed Music Director of the Jersey Chamber Orchestra where he was chief conductor for 10 seasons and worked with artists such as Nicola Benedetti, Sophie Bevan, Alison Balsom and Lawrence Zazzo. Cohen was also a Gustavo Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the 2013-14 season, and a conducting fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival.
As a violinist, Daniel Cohen was a long-term member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, where he was also as Assistant Conductor to Daniel Barenboim, assisting him on such projects as the Beethoven symphony cycle and the recording of Boulez’s Derive II.
JULY 2019
