Lucerne Festival Orchestra

The summer of 2003 witnessed the birth of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, established by Claudio Abbado and Michael Haefliger. Its creation revived the spirit of the legendary “elite orchestra” that Arturo Toscanini had assembled in 1938 — the year in which the Festival was founded — by bringing celebrated virtuosos together to form a magnificent ensemble. Abbado served as Music Director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra up until his death in January 2014. Riccardo Chailly became his successor in 2016 and has since extended his contract through 2026. Guest conductors have included Herbert Blomstedt, Iván Fischer, Bernard Haitink, Pablo Heras-Casado, Jakub Hrůša, Paavo Järvi, Klaus Mäkelä, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Rafael Payare, and Franz Welser-Möst. The orchestra comprises renowned principals, chamber musicians, and music teachers, as well as members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Filarmonica della Scala. It performs multiple symphony concerts during the Summer Festival and, since 2022, has also presented a three-day music festival in the spring, along with chamber music programs. Many of its performances have been broadcast on television and released as DVDs or CDs, earning such distinctions as the Diapason d’or, the BBC Music Magazine Award, and the International Classical Music Award. The orchestra has toured to many European musical capitals, as well as to New York, Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai. In the fall of 2024, it performed with Chailly at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

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

July 2025