With a booming choral sound reverberating around the ancient Gloucester Cathedral, a six-year-old Edward Gardner, born in the city on November 22, 1974, fell in love with music for the first time and was set on the path to becoming one of Britain's leading maestros. He was soon singing in that very church as a choirboy and studied at Eton College, Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music before starting his career as musical director of Wokingham Choral Society, later working as assistant to Mark Elder at The Halle Orchestra in Manchester. A last minute call to become a repetiteur for esteemed German conductor Michael Gielen at the 1999 Salzburg Festival production of Lulu was another big break for Gardner and he went on to win the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Prize in 2005 and spent eight years as musical director of the English National Opera where he led an acclaimed rendition of Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice. He also became the youngest ever conductor to perform at the Last Night of the Proms in 2011 and lead the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra before becoming chief conductor of the prestigious Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in 2015, overseeing memorable interpretations of works by Edvard Grieg, Edward Elgar and William Walton. For the record label Chandos, Gardner made several respected albums with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, including Lutoslawski orchestral and vocal works in 2012, Szymanowski symphonies in 2012 and Walton symphonies and and Violin concerto in 2014, but it was with the Bergen Philharmonic that he attained his first Grammy Award nomination for their take on Czech composer Leos Janacek's Glagolitic Mass from Orchestral Works Vol 3 in 2016. Known for his spritely, punchy style, absorbing love of the music and controlled enthusiasm, Gardner was awarded an OBE in 2012 for services to music and released a widely admired recording of Elgar's Symphony No.1 in 2017. Apart from regular programs of Sibelius, Nielsen, Bartók, Schönberg, Schubert and Brahms symphonies cycles, Gardner continues to expand his repertoire with Wagner's celebrated Die fliegende Höllander sung by Lise Davidsen and Richard Strauss' Salomé in 2025. Following the recording of the Elgar's choral work The Dream of Gerontius with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, released in 2025, Edward Gardner returned with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra for Brahms: Symphonies No. 2 & No. 4 (2026).
