Music Director Daniel Harding

Director Emeritus Sir Antonio Pappano

The Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia was the first orchestra in Italy to devote itself exclusively to the symphonic repertoire, premiering 20th-century masterpieces such as Ottorino Respighi’s Fountains of Rome and Pines of Rome. Since 1908, its podium has been visited by the likes of Mahler, R. Strauss, Stravinsky, Sibelius, Hindemith, Toscanini, Furtwängler, De Sabata, Erich and Carlos Kleiber, Solti, Mengelberg, Karajan, Stokowski, Reiner, Bruno Walter, Celibidache, Masur, Blomstedt, Abbado, Dudamel, and Kirill Petrenko. Bernardino Molinari, Franco Ferrara, Fernando Previtali, Igor Markevitch, Thomas Schippers, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Daniele Gatti, Myung-Whun Chung, and Sir Antonio Pappano (2005-2023) have been its permanent conductors. Beginning with the 2024-25 season, the new Music Director is Daniel Harding. Leonard Bernstein, was its Honorary President from 1983 to 1990.

The Orchestra has appeared at the foremost international festivals – the Proms in London and the Lucerne, Saint Petersburg, and Salzburg Festivals – and in some of the most prestigious concert venues, including Berliner Philharmonie, Semperoper in Dresden, Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Musikverein in Vienna, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, La Scala in Milan, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and Carnegie Hall in New York. In 2024, the Orchestra and Chorus were resident guests at the prestigious Salzburg Easter Festival.

The intense recording activity with Pappano in recent years garnered prestigious international honours. Recordings include The Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saëns with Martha Argerich, Bernstein’s Complete Symphonies, Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, Rossini’s Messa di Gloria, Verdi’s Aida and Otello (with Jonas Kaufmann), Turandot with Sondra Radvanovsky and Jonas Kaufmann, and some recitals with Anna Netrebko. Warner Classics has published a 27-CD box set containing a large portion of the pieces from the religious and symphonic repertoire recorded under Pappano’s baton by the Orchestra and Chorus over the past 18 years.

With Harding, recordings will start on a new course with the Deutsche Grammophon label. The first album dedicated to Puccini’s Tosca, recorded live in October 2024 has been released on 28 March 2025.

Season 2025/26, as of November 2025