Sir Simon Rattle

Born in Liverpool in 1955, Simon Rattle studied piano, percussion, and orchestral conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He began his close collaboration with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1980, which he led as Music Director from 1990 to 1998, shaping it into a top international ensemble. In 2002, he joined the Berlin Philharmonic as Chief Conductor for a tenure that lasted until 2018, gradually expanding its repertoire by integrating new music and staged performances, as well as Baroque works and music-historical rarities. Many of these concerts have been released on CD and have gone on to win awards. His Berlin education program also won several distinctions, including the Comenius Award and the Schiller Prize of the City of Mannheim. Rattle has been Music Director of the London Symphony Orchestra since 2017, which he will helm until 2024; in 2023, he will take over as Chief Conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He is also closely associated with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, currently as Principal Artist; is Founding Patron of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group; and guest-conducts the leading orchestras of Europe and the United States. Rattle debuted as an opera conductor in 1977 at the Glyndebourne Festival. Additional engagements have taken him to the Opéra national de Paris, the Royal Opera House in London, the National Opera in Amsterdam, the Vienna Staatsoper, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, as well as the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. He regularly collaborates with the Staatsoper Berlin, where he will launch a new production of Mozart’s Idomeneo in the 2022-23 season. Simon Rattle was made a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994; he is a recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and a Knight of the French Legion of Honor. He received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize in 2013 and the Freedom of the City of London in 2018.

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

August 2022