- 1842-1849 Ureli Corelli Hill, Henry Timm, Denis Etienne, William Alpers, George Loder, Louis Wiegers and Alfred Boucher
- 1849-1854 Theodore Eisfeld
- 1854-1855 Theodore Eisfeld and Henry Timm
- 1855-1856 Carl Bergmann
- 1856-1858 Theodore Eisfeld
- 1858-1859 Carl Bergmann
- 1859-1865 Carl Bergmann and Theodore Eisfeld
- 1865-1876 Carl Bergmann
- 1876-1877 Leopold Damrosch
- 1877-1878 Theodore Thomas
- 1878-1879 Adolf Neuendorff
- 1879-1891 Theodore Thomas
- 1891-1898 Anton Seidl
- 1898-1902 Emil Paur
- 1902-1903 Walter Damrosch
- 1906-1909 Wassily Safonoff
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- 1909-1911 Gustav Mahler
- 1911-1923 Josef Stransky
- 1922-1930 Willem Mengelberg
- 1928-1936 Arturo Toscanini
- 1936-1941 John Barbirolli
- 1943-1947 Artur Rodziński
- 1947-1949 Bruno Walter (music advisor)
- 1949-1950 Leopold Stokowski (co-principal conductor)
- 1949-1958 Dimitri Mitropoulos
- 1958-1969 Leonard Bernstein
- 1969-1970 George Szell (music advisor)
- 1971-1977 Pierre Boulez
- 1978-1991 Zubin Mehta
- 1991-2002 Kurt Masur
- 2002-2009 Lorin Maazel
- 2009–present Alan Gilbert
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