Daniel Cohen

Conductor

GMD Staatstheater Darmstadt (since 2018/19)
"If the conductor likes the orchestra, and vice versa, and both are interested in trying something together, then we have it: the process of becoming more familiar with each other, the more we widen our world of sound."
Daniel Cohen, January 2020
Go to Biography
Contacts

Biography

Daniel Cohen has been the General Music Director of the Staatstheater Darmstadt since 2018 and has recently prolonged his tenure in Darmstadt until the 2026-27 season. Recent highlights in Darmstadt include Wagner’s Lohengrin, directed by Andrea Moses, Berg’s Lulu, directed by Eva Maria Höckmayr, Hoffmann’s Tales, directed by Dirk Schmeding, Strauss’s Elektra, directed by Karsten Wiegand, and Verdi’s Otello, directed by Paul-Georg Dittrich. In the current season Cohen will conduct new productions of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, directed by Eva Maria Höckmayer and of Berg’s Wozzeck, directed by Tatjana Gürbaca.

Cohen maintains regular links with Berlin opera houses - in the 2015/2016 season, he was engaged as Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he conducted numerous performances of "Così fan tutte", "Don Giovanni" and "La Traviata", among others, and has returned to the house regularly ever since. The world premiere of Giorgio Battistelli's "Il Teorema di Pasolini" in June 2023 is being celebrated in the press. Deutsche Bühne writes: "Conductor Daniel Cohen and the Deutsche Oper orchestra perform (...) at the quality level of a top international opera house." He made his debut at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in 2016/17 with Stravinsky's "Le sacre du printemps" and returned for "Il barbiere di Siviglia" and a revival of Benjamin Britten's "Turn of the screw", among others.

Further Operatic invitations have taken him to the Canadian Opera Company (Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito with David Alden), the Macerata Opera Festival ( Mozart’s Magic Flute with Graham Vick), the Israeli Opera Tel-Aviv (Berg’s Wozzeck and Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk), the Teatro Massimo di Palermo (Mozart’s Idomeneo and Britten’s Midsummernight’s Dream) theater Essen (Berg’s Wozzeck) and the Norske Opera Oslo (Rossini’s Barber of Seville and Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro).

In summer 2019, Daniel Cohen made his debut with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Bregenz Festival in a production of "Don Quichotte" by Jules Massenet, directed by Mariame Clément. The production, which was released on DVD and broadcast by the BBC, was awarded the Austrian Music Theater Prize 2020 for "Best Overall Opera Production". In 2021, he returned to the Bregenz Festival to conduct "Rigoletto", and in 2022 he conducted the inaugural concert of the Akademy Orchestra Bregenz, which he also conducted in the summer of 2024.
„Clarity and accuracy. There are difficult productions in which you may not always hear the orchestra, so the cue becomes crucial. I also appreciate conductors who really breathe with me in long phrases. Daniel Cohen, who directs The Turn of the Screw, is a great example of this.”Maria Bengtsson in an interview with VAN Magazin, April 2018
In the symphonic field, he has conducted the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the MDR Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale in Florence, the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Camerata Salzburg and the Basel Symphony Orchestra, among others. In 2021 he recorded Hindemith Clarinet concerto for Orfeo with Frankfurt Radio Orchestra and soloist Sharon Kam.

One of the focal points of his repertoire is contemporary music: In 2009 -2010 Daniel Cohen was Pierre Boulez’s assistant at the Lucerne Festival and from 2011 to 2013 he was a participant in the "Lucerne Festival Academy Composer Project", which was directed by Pierre.

Trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Daniel Cohen was a violinist in the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra for many years, where he was also Daniel Barenboim’s assistant. In the 2013/14 season, Daniel Cohen was a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra. A year later, he was a Conducting Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival.

2024 / 2025
This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorized by artist management.
Contacts: Arnold Simmenauer, Juliane Scotney

Images

Programme

2024 / 2025

You’ll find the current programs in the IMPRESARIUM of the 24/25 season

Schedule

10/11/2024
11:00 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt, Chor des Staatstheaters Darmstadt, Symphonischer Chor Bamberg
11/11/2024
20:00 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt, Chor des Staatstheaters Darmstadt, Symphonischer Chor Bamberg
02/02/2025
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt
09/02/2025
11:00 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt, Elisabeth Brauß
10/02/2025
20:00 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt, Elisabeth Brauß
16/02/2025
16:00 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt, Eva-Maria Höckmayr
06/03/2025
19:30 h
Hoddinott Hall
Cardiff, United Kingdom
Daniel Cohen, BBC National Orchestra & Chorus of Wales, Ava Bahari, Matthew Featherstone
12/03/2025
18:00 h
Konserthuset
Helsingborg, Sweden
Daniel Cohen, Helsingborgs Symfoniorkester
15/03/2025
15:00 h
Konserthuset
Helsingborg, Sweden
Daniel Cohen, Helsingborgs Symfoniorkester
16/03/2025
16:00 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt, Eva-Maria Höckmayr
17/05/2025
19:30 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt, Tatjana Gürbaca
25/05/2025
18:00 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt, Tatjana Gürbaca
07/06/2025
19:30 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt, Tatjana Gürbaca
13/06/2025
19:30 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt, Tatjana Gürbaca
22/06/2025
11:00 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt
23/06/2025
20:00 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt
03/07/2025
19:30 h
Staatstheater Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
Daniel Cohen, Staatsorchester Darmstadt, Tatjana Gürbaca

Videos

European Philharmonic of Switzerland - EPOS
Daniel Cohen, Helsinki Philharmonic Attahir Swati'l Zaman
I Know a Bank, A Midsummer Night's Dream - Zazzo / Cohen / Teatro Massimo

Contact

Arnold Simmenauer
Managing Director
t: +49 (0)30 414 781 724
Juliane Scotney
Senior Artist Manager
t: +49 (0)30 414 781 715