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 and Tristan und Isolde, Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, Strauss’s Elektra, Berg’s Wozzeck, Verdi’s Otello and Berg’s Lulu.
Cohen maintains strong artistic ties with Berlin’s opera houses. In 2015–16, he served as Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and has returned regularly ever since. 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), the Macerata Opera Festival (The Magic Flute), the Israeli Opera (Wozzeck and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk), Teatro Massimo di Palermo (Idomeneo and A Midsummer Night’s Dream), 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, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Camerata Salzburg, Basel Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic.
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.