Riccardo Chailly
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Riccardo Chailly (born February 20, 1953) is an Italian conductor. He started his career as an opera conductor and gradually extended his repertoire to encompass symphonic music.
Chailly (pronounced sha-EE) was born in Milan in a musical family. His father, Luciano, was a composer and young Riccardo studied composition with him.
At age twenty, Chailly became assistant conductor to Claudio Abbado at La Scala. He made his conducting debut at there in 1978 and was soon great demand, making appearances at the Vienna, Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Salzburg Festival, and the Bavarian State Opera.
From 1982 to 1988, Chailly was chief conductor of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and from 1982 to 1985 principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic. From 1986 to 1993, he led the Teatro Comunale of Bologna.
From 1988 to 2004, Chailly was chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra where he dedicated himself to performances of the standard symphonic tradition, notably Bruckner and Mahler, with which the orchestra made its name but also significantly broadened the repertoire with 20th century and contemporary music. Among notable projects, Chailly led the 1995 Mahler Festival that celebrated the 100th anniversary of Mahler's first concert at the Concertgebouw. Chailly also conducted opera in Amsterdam, both at the Concertgebouw Orchestra's annual Christmas Matinee concert as well as at De Nederlandse Opera, where he bade his operatic farewell to Amsterdam with a production of Verdi's Don Carlo.
In August 2005, Chailly took up his new position in Leipzig as the chief conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and general music director of Oper Leipzig.
| Preceded by: Lorin Maazel |
Principal Conductor, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin 1982–1989 |
Succeeded by: Vladimir Ashkenazy |
| Preceded by: Bernard Haitink |
Chief Conductor, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra 1988–2004 |
Succeeded by: Mariss Jansons |
| Preceded by: Herbert Blomstedt |
Kapellmeister, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra 2005– |
Succeeded by: incumbent |
