Sir Mark Elder has been Music Director of the Hallé since September 2000.  He was Music Director of English National Opera between 1979 and 1993, Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1992–1995, and Music Director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in the USA from 1989–1994.  He has also held positions as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Mozart Players. He has worked with many of the world’s leading symphony orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic and the London Symphony. In the UK he enjoys close associations with both the London Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Sir Mark Elder has appeared annually at the Proms in London for many years, including, in 1987 and 2006, the internationally televised Last Night of the Proms and from 2003 with the Hallé Orchestra. He works regularly in the most prominent international opera houses, including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Opéra National de Paris, the Lyric Opera Chicago, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, and other guest engagements have taken him to the Bayreuth Festival (where he was the first English conductor to conduct a new production), Amsterdam, Zürich, Geneva, Berlin, and Sydney. Sir Mark Elder has made many recordings with orchestras including the Hallé, London Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, and the Rochester Philharmonic, as well as with English National Opera, in repertoire ranging from Verdi, Strauss and Wagner to contemporary music. Recordings for Opera Rara include Donizetti’s Dom Sebastien (Opera Rara ORC33), Imelda de’ Lambertazzi (ORC36), Linda di Chamounix (ORC43), Maria di Rohan (ORC44), Belisario (ORC49), Rita (ORC52), Le Duc d’Albe (ORC54) and Offenbach’s Fantasio (ORC51).