Sir Simon Rattle

Born in Liverpool in 1955, Simon Rattle studied piano, percussion, and orchestral conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 1980, he began his collaboration with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, which he led as Music Director from 1990 to 1998, shaping it into a world-class ensemble. In 2002, he became Chief Conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker, whose repertoire he expanded during his 16-year tenure with Baroque and contemporary works as well as historical rarities. His education program in Berlin received several awards, including the Comenius Award and the Schiller Prize of the City of Mannheim. He then spent six years as Music Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, with which he remains associated as Conductor Laureate. Since 2023, Sir Simon has served as Chief Conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; since 2024, he has also been Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. He is Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Founding Patron of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Rattle made his operatic debut in 1977 at the Glyndebourne Festival. He has also appeared at the Opéra national de Paris, the Royal Opera House in London, Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, the Vienna Staatsoper, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. He regularly collaborates with the Berlin Staatsoper, where he conducted Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen in spring 2026 and is scheduled to lead Mozart’s Idomeneo in 2027; in 2026, the Staatskapelle Berlin named him its Honorary Conductor. In 1994, Simon Rattle was appointed a Knight Bachelor; he has been awarded Germany’s Federal Cross of Merit and is a Chevalier of the French Légion d’honneur. He received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize in 2013, the Freedom of the City of London in 2018, and, in 2025, the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, the highest distinction in the world of music.

Lucerne Festival (IMF) debut on 8 September 1996 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in a program of works by Berlioz, Beethoven, Tippett, and Haydn.

March 2026