In September 2000 Mark Elder will become Music Director of the Hallé Orchestra. 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 works regularly with many of the world's leading symphony orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, and the NDR in Hamburg, and, in the UK, enjoys close associations with both the London Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Mark Elder has appeared annually at the Proms in London for many years, including, in 1987, the internationally televised Last Night of the Proms.

He works regularly in many of 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 of 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, Geneva, Berlin, and Sydney.

During his years at ENO he brought international acclaim to the company for its work in London, as well as leading tours to the USA (including the Met in New York) and Russia (including the Bolshoi in Moscow and the Mariinsky in St Petersburg).

Mark Elder has made many recordings with orchestras including the 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. In collaboration with the director Barrie Gavin, he made a two-part film on the life and music of Verdi for BBC TV in 1994, which was followed by a similar project on Donizetti for German television in 1996.

Forthcoming symphonic engagements, apart from his commitment to the Hallé, include the Orchestre de Paris, the Sydney Symphony, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and projects with the OAE. In the autumn of 1999 he conducted Mefistofele and Otello for the Metropolitan Opera New York and more recently Pelléas et Mélisande for the Opéra National de Paris and The Rake's Progress for Glyndebourne. Future operatic engagements include La Cenerentola, Atilla and Bataglia di Legano for Covent Garden and Euryanthe for Glyndebourne.

Mark Elder was awarded the CBE by the Queen in 1989, and won an Olivier Award in 1991 for his outstanding work at ENO.