Philharmonia Orchestra names Sir John Eliot Gardiner as principal guest conductor emeritus

London's Philharmonia Orchestra has today announced the appointment of Sir John Eliot Gardiner to the role of principal guest conductor emeritus. Having reignited its relationship with the British conductor during the pandemic after a 23-year gap the orchestra has decided to create a more formal relationship with Gardiner through his new title, given in the week of his 80th birthday.

The conductor will begin his tenure with one concert and an international tour in the 2023-24 season. For the following three seasons, the orchestra’s partnership with Gardiner will include three programmes at the Philharmonia’s home, the Royal Festival Hall, plus tours within which the conductor will be free to develop his own programmatic ideas and introduce new repertoire.

Kira Doherty, orchestra president and second horn said: ‘Not only is Gardiner one of the most eminent and celebrated conductors of his time, he is also a passionate and vocal advocate for the arts. A man of towering talent and unshakable musical conviction, we look forward immensely to working together and building an artistic vision that will see the Orchestra pushed to new musical heights.’

An extraordinary conductor and pioneer of historically informed performance, Sir John Eliot Gardiner is founder and artistic director of the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. As well as producing hundreds of recordings and performing as guest conductor with orchestras across the world, Gardiner was the first ever president of the BachArchiv Leipzig and is an honorary fellow of King’s College, Cambridge; King's College, London; the British Academy, and the Royal Academy of Music. He was awarded a knighthood for services to music in the 1998 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Gardiner said: ‘Re-establishing contact with this magnificent orchestra feels like a wonderful homecoming. It’s been a delight to re-encounter the translucent warmth of the legendary Philharmonia string sound, to rediscover and admire the individual character and musicality of their woodwind principals and the burnished sonority of their brass section. I am excited by this opportunity to renew and deepen my fruitful association with this flexible and open-minded body of musicians, and the chance it gives to cement the links with them by developing fresh ways to explore both familiar and unchartered areas of the symphonic repertoire.’

You can find out more about Sir John Eliot Gardiner in Classical Music’s spring issue, where Freya Parr looks back on an extraordinary career in celebration of the legendary conductor’s 80^th birthday.