Since becoming music director of Glyndebourne on Tour at only 28 years old, British-born Edward Gardner has emerged as one of the most talented conductors of his generation. He has been appointed music director of the English National Opera, a position he will take up in May 2007, and is currently part of the ENO Company as music director designate.

In the summer of 2005, Gardner made his successful debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Aldeburgh Festival by taking over a cancellation at the last minute. Since then, he has been reinvited for studio concerts and recordings and a Barbican debut. His successful debut at the Edinburgh International Festival with the UK premiere of John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer (Scottish Opera) led to an invitation to open the 2006 Festival with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and a performance of the Strauss Elektra.

Other orchestral highlights include debuts with Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, MDR Leipzig, English Chamber Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Orquestra Nacional do Porto. Gardner also has return engagements with Halle Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

In the 2006-2007 season, Gardner returns to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liege and the Orchestre de Bretagne as well making his debut with the Orchestre National de Belgique, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Aspen Summer Music Festival.

Gardner returns to the Paris Opera this season for a new production of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore and a production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni; in the 2007-2008 season he conducts Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. He will also conduct a production of Mozart’s Il Re Pastore with the Royal Opera and The English Baroque Soloists at the Linbury Theatre, Covent Garden. He debuts in the main Glyndebourne season with performances of Beethoven’s Fidelio in August 2006.

Future productions include Britten’s Turn of the Screw (Autumn 2006) and Verdi’s Macbeth (Autumn 2007).