Daniel Cohen has been General Music Director of the Staatstheater Darmstadt since 2018/2019.
From 2004 to 2014 he was Music Director of the Jersey Chamber Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Gropius Ensemble, creating projects which explored the threshold between music and theatre.
Cohen maintains continuous relationships to the major Berlin opera houses - in 2015/2016 he was Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper Berlin where he conducted numerous performances including Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, and La Traviata and has been a regular guest ever since. Next season Cohen will return to the Deutsche Oper Berlin to conduct the world premiere of Battistelli’s Il Teorema di Pasolini. At the Staatsoper Unter den Linden he made his debut in 2016/17 with Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps and returned for performances including Il barbiere di Siviglia as well as a revival of the production Turn of the screw by Benjamin Britten. Further invitations lead him to the Canadian Opera Company with David Alden, the Israeli Opera Tel-Aviv, the Nationaltheater Mannheim, Teatro Massimo and to the Norske Opera Oslo.
In the symphonic domain, he has conducted among others the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Dresdner Philharmonie, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the HR-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig and the Sinfonieorchester Basel. One focus of his repertoire is contemporary music: from 2011 to 2013 he was a participant of the Lucerne Festival Academy Composer Project, lead by Pierre Boulez.
In 2022/23 Daniel Cohen’s guest appearances include a return to the Norwegian Opera, Deutsche Oper, MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Orchestra della Toscana, as well as concerts with the Münchner Symphoniker, The newly formed Bregenz Festival Academy Orchestra, the Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano. At the Staatstheater Darmstadt highlights will include a new production of Berg’s Lulu
and concerts with soloists such as Sharon Kam and Fazil Say.
After his Studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Daniel Cohen was a long-term member of the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra as a violinist, where he also assisted Daniel Barenboim with many concerts and recordings. In 2013/14 Daniel Cohen was Dudamel Fellow at the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra, one year later he was Conducting Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival.
Photo by Kaupo Kikkas