Philippe Jordan

Hailing from an artistic Swiss family, Philippe Jordan is today considered one of the most distinguished and established conductors of his generation. His international career has taken him to the leading opera houses, festivals, and concert halls around the world. Beginning with the 2027/28 season, he will assume the position of Music Director of the Orchestre National de France.

Jordan served as Music Director of the Vienna State Opera from September 2020 until June 2025, during which time he led numerous outstanding new productions, including Madama Butterfly, Parsifal, Macbeth, Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Tristan und Isolde, Salome, and Il Trittico. He placed special artistic emphasis on an entirely new Da Ponte cycle by Mozart. In his final season, 2024/25, he conducted new productions of Don Carlo and Tannhäuser, as well as revivals of the Mozart cycle and Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen.

In summer 2025, Jordan returned to the Salzburg Festival to conduct Macbeth once again. In the 2025/26 season, he appeared with the Vienna State Opera on tour in Japan with Der Rosenkavalier. Additional concert engagements in the upcoming season will take him to the Orchestre National de France, the Opéra de Paris, La Scala in Milan, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, and to the United States, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In Asia, he will guest conduct the Seoul Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra.

Jordan’s artistic journey began as Kapellmeister at the Theater Ulm and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. From 2001 to 2004, he was Principal Conductor of the Graz Opera and the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra. During this time, he also debuted at many leading opera houses and festivals, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, La Scala in Milan, the Bavarian State Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, and the festivals in Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne, and Salzburg. From 2006 to 2010, he served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Berlin State Opera. He made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival in 2012 with Parsifal and returned in 2017 with a new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which he conducted in subsequent seasons as well.

From 2009 to 2021, Philippe Jordan was Music Director of the Opéra national de Paris, where he conducted numerous major productions, including Moses und Aron, La Damnation de Faust, Der Rosenkavalier, Samson et Dalila, Lohengrin, Don Carlos in its original French version, Les Troyens, Don Giovanni, a new staging of Borodin’s Prince Igor, and Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen in a concert version. 

From 2014 to 2020, he also served as Chief Conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of his tenure included complete cycles of the symphonies of Schubert and Beethoven, all of Beethoven’s piano concertos, an extensive series of masses and oratorios by Johann Sebastian Bach, and a contrasting dialogue between Bruckner’s final three symphonies and works by György Kurtág, György Ligeti, and Giacinto Scelsi.

As a concert conductor, Philippe Jordan has collaborated with the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre National de France, as well as virtually all major North American orchestras – including the symphony orchestras of Boston, Seattle, St. Louis, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Washington, Minnesota, Montreal, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.