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 Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Mozart’s Le Nozze di 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.

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 Boulez and included Cohen’s debut at the KKL.

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.

October 2024