Riccardo Chailly is Principal Conductor of Filarmonica della Scala since November 2015. Born in Milan, he studied in Perugia, Roma and Milano, following also Franco Ferrara’s advanced courses at Siena’s Accademia Chigiana. The Radio-Symphonie-Orchester of Berlin offered him his first position as Principal Conductor. For 16 years, from 1988, Chailly covered the same position at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, in Amsterdam. Contemporarily, he was Music Director of Bologna’s Teatro Comunale and of Verdi Symphonic Orchestra, in Milan. In 2016 he concluded his long collaboration as Kapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester in Lipsia.

He regularly conducts the most important European symphonic orchestras: Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris. In the United States he conducted New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra e Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Concerning Opera, he collaborates with: Teatro alla Scala, Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper, Wiener Staatsoper, Opernhaus Zurich. He is regularly invited to the most important international festivals, among which Salisburgo and London’s Proms; from August 2016 Chailly is Music Director of the Lucerna Festival’s Orchestra, a position that in the past was held by Claudio Abbado.

Riccardo Chailly is a Decca exclusive artist. He won the prestigious Echo Klassik prize as 2012 “Best Conductor” with the recording of Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies with the Gewandhausorchester. His complete edition of Brahms’ Symphonies won the Gramophone Award as “Recording of the Year”, and Viva Verdi, recorded with the Filarmonica della Scala for the celebration of the 200th year from Verdi’s birth, resulted the most sold classic CD in Italy. Riccardo Chailly is Italian Republic’s Grand’Ufficiale and Cavaliere di Gran Croce, he is also a member of London’s Royal Academy of Music. He was nominated Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion and Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.