Tabita Berglund

Chief Conductor Designate

Tabita Berglund has established herself as one of the most in-demand conductors of her generation. With a charismatic style that combines elegance, verve and precision – eliciting “exceptional music-making” (The Arts Desk) – she collaborates with leading orchestras worldwide. Berglund is Principal Guest Conductor of both Detroit Symphony Orchestra (from the 2024/25 season) and Dresdner Philharmonie (from 2025/26), having been appointed to each position following her respective debut. She served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra from 2021 to 2024, her first titled appointment. Berglund made her UK debut with the Hallé Orchestra in 2019 and her first commercial recording in 2021, an album of works by Bruch, Barber and Vaughan Williams with the Oslo Philharmonic and violinist Sonoko Miriam Welde.

Tabita Berglund’s international status has been reinforced by recent/upcoming guest engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Bamberger Symphoniker, hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, among others. She regularly collaborates with leading international soloists, including Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Hélène Grimaud, Pekka Kuusisto, Leila Josefowicz, Leif Ove Andsnes, Augustin Hadelich, Truls Mørk and Kirill Gerstein, to name a few. She has previously conducted Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro for Garsington Opera and Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker for the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet.

Tabita Berglund studied cello at the Trondheim Conservatory of Music and subsequently enrolled at the Norwegian Academy of Music to study with the Bergen-born cellist Truls Mørk. Having completed a master’s degree in cello and performing often as a deputy with the Oslo and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestras and Trondheim Soloists, she began a second master’s degree in conducting in 2017. The following year she was selected to join Dirigentløftet, the pioneering training programme created by Talent Norge (‘Talent Norway’) to strengthen Norway’s national level of conductors. As a participant in Talent Norge’s Opptakt scheme, backed by government and matched private-sector funding, she undertook guest conducting engagements with, among others, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet.