Daniel Cohen has served as General Music Director of the Staatstheater Darmstadt since 2018 and recently extended his tenure through the 2026–27 season. Highlights in Darmstadt include Wagner’s Lohengrin (directed by Andrea Moses), Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann (Dirk Schmeding), Strauss’s Elektra and Berg’s Wozzeck (Karsten Wiegand), Verdi’s Otello (Paul-Georg Dittrich), as well as Berg’s Lulu and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (Eva-Maria Höckmayr).
In the 2025/26 season, he will make his debuts with the English National Opera in London and Manchester in Britten’s Albert Herring, the New National Theatre Tokyo in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, the Musikkollegium Winterthur and the Staatsorchester Stuttgart. He will also return to the Israel Philharmonic and Munich Symphony Orchestras.
Cohen maintains strong artistic ties with Berlin’s opera houses. In 2015–16, he served as Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, conducting productions including Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, and La Traviata, and has returned regularly ever since, most recently for the widely acclaimed world premiere of Giorgio Battistelli’s Il Teorema di Pasolini. Deutsche Bühne noted: “Conductor Daniel Cohen and the Deutsche Oper orchestra perform (...) at the quality level of a top international opera house.” At the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, where he debuted in 2016–17 with Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps, he has since returned for Il barbiere di Siviglia and Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, among others.

Further opera engagements have taken him to the Canadian Opera Company (La clemenza di Tito with David Alden), the Macerata Opera Festival (The Magic Flute with Graham Vick), the Israeli Opera (Wozzeck and Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk), Teatro Massimo di Palermo (Idomeneo and A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Theater Essen (Wozzeck), and Den Norske Opera Oslo (The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro). In July 2025, he conducts the highly praised Italian premiere of Britten’s Owen Wingrave at the Festival della Valle d’Itria.

In the symphonic field, Cohen has conducted leading ensembles including the Staatskapelle Berlin, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Munich Symphony Orchestra, MDR Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale in Florence, Israeli Philharmonic, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Camerata Salzburg, and Basel Symphony Orchestra. In 2021, he recorded Hindemith’s Clarinet Concerto with the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra and soloist Sharon Kam for Orfeo.

Cohen’s long-standing association with the Bregenz Festival began in 2019 with his debut conducting the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in Massenet’s Don Quichotte, directed by Mariame Clément. The production, later released on DVD and broadcast by the BBC, won the 2020 Austrian Music Theater Prize for “Best Overall Opera Production.” He returned in 2021 for Rigoletto and in 2022 and 2024 to conduct the Akademieorchester Bregenz.
A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Cohen served as Pierre Boulez’s assistant at the Lucerne Festival (2009–2010) and participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy Composer Project (2011–2013), making his KKL debut under Boulez’s guidance.

Trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Cohen was for many years a violinist in the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, where he also served as assistant to Daniel Barenboim. He was a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2013–14 and a Conducting Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 2014.

2025/2026