Executive Director
Daniel Hart has served as President & Executive Director since 2004. Since then, in concert with JoAnn Falletta a stellar management team and Board of Trustees, the BPO has accomplished a number of important milestones, including a nearly 10-fold increase of endowment funds to more than $60 million and record season ticket sales. The orchestra has completed two appearances at Carnegie Hall, five much-heralded tours of Florida, and a five-city tour of Poland in 2018 at the invitation of the Beethoven Easter Festival in Warsaw.
60 recordings have been produced between Naxos and the BPO’s own label, Beau Fleuve, with digitalization of the recording catalogue reaching people in an many as 150 counties around the glove each month. In 2009, the recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man won two GRAMMYs and in 2020 the recording of Richard Daniel Piut The Passion of Yeshua won the GRAMMY for best choral performance while numerous other CD projects have received nomination, most recently for Best Orchestra Performance in 2024 and 2025. The appeared twice on NPR’s popular program “From the Top,” and its concerts are broadcast frequently on American Public Radio’s Performance Today to over 200 cities. Attendance for the BPO’s education programs has grown dramatically, from 15,000 to over 40,000 with overall attendance upwards of 150,000 people each year.
Mr. Hart's career began when he was chosen to participate in the Orchestra Management Fellowship Program of the League of American Orchestras. His Fellowship year included residencies with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Colorado Springs Symphony and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. His first position after the Fellowship was as Assistant Manager/Development Director of the Kansas City Symphony (1987-88) where his duties spanned fundraising, education and operations. His first Executive Director post was with Baton Rouge Symphony (1988-90), followed by the Colorado Springs Symphony (1990-94), and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra (1994-98). Prior to his arrival in Buffalo, he served as President and Executive Director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra (1998-2004). Over the years, Mr. Hart has served on committees of the League of American Orchestras and as a grant review panelist for the Colorado Arts Council, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, the New York State Council for the Arts and the Michigan Council on the Arts.Trained as a musician on double bass, Mr. Hart performed as a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the American Youth Orchestra, Debut Orchestra of the Young Musicians Foundation in Los Angeles and the Rome Festival Orchestra in Rome, Italy, before embarking on his career in orchestra management.