Lucerne Festival Orchestra

The summer of 2003 marked the founding of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra by Claudio Abbado and Michael Haefliger, who was Executive and Artistic Director at the time. Its creation revived the spirit of the legendary “elite orchestra” assembled by Arturo Toscanini in 1938 — the year the Festival was founded — by bringing together celebrated virtuosos to form a distinguished and richly characterized ensemble. Abbado led the Lucerne Festival Orchestra until his death in January 2014. Riccardo Chailly was appointed his successor in 2016 and has since extended his contract through 2028. Guest conductors have included Herbert Blomstedt, Bernard Haitink, Jakub Hrůša, Klaus Mäkelä, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Sir Simon Rattle, and Franz Welser-Möst. The orchestra comprises renowned soloists, chamber musicians, and music professors, as well as members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Filarmonica della Scala. It performs multiple concerts during the Summer Festival, as well as chamber music programs, and, since 2022, a three-day spring festival. Many of its performances have been broadcast on television and released either on DVD or CD, earning major distinctions such as the Diapason d’or, the BBC Music Magazine Award, and the International Classical Music Award. Its most recent releases include the first four installments of Chailly’s five-part Rachmaninoff cycle on the Accentus label. The orchestra has toured to numerous European musical capitals, as well as to New York, Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai.

The Lucerne Festival Orches­tra has been performing every year at the Summer Festival since its inaugural concerts in the summer of 2003

April 2026