Lucerne Festival Orchestra

The summer of 2003 witnessed the birth of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, established by the Italian conductor Claudio Abbado and the Festival’s Executive and Artistic Director 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 Andris Nelsons, Bernard Haitink, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Herbert Blomstedt, Jakub Hrůša, Iván Fischer, Pablo Heras-Casado, Klaus Mäkelä, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and Paavo Järvi. 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 prestigious awards as the Diapason d’or, the BBC Music Magazine Award, and the International Classical Music Award. The Lucerne Festival 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 appeared 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

February 2025