Lucerne Festival Orchestra

The summer of 2003 saw the birth of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA, which was founded by the Italian conductor Claudio Abbado and by the Festival’s Executive and Artistic Director Michael Haefliger. In this way they established a link with the legendary “elite orchestra” for which Arturo Toscanini assembled acclaimed virtuosos of his time to create a magnificent ensemble, introducing it in a “Concert de Gala” in 1938, the year of the Festival’s founding. Abbado served as Music Director of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA up until his death in January 2014. Riccardo Chailly, who was appointed as his successor, inaugurated his tenure as the new Music Director in the summer of 2016 with two performances of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, thus concluding the Mahler cycle that Abbado had been unable to finish. The orchestra comprises internationally acclaimed principals, chamber musicians, and music teachers, as well as members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Filarmonica della Scala. During the 2018 Summer Festival, Chailly performed three different programs with them in which the focus in on Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, and Anton Bruckner. Many of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA’s performances over the last decade have been broadcast on television and then released on DVD or CD; these have garnered such awards as the Diapason d’Or, the BBC Music Magazine Award, and the International Classical Music Award. Their most-recent production, which appeared in June 2018, is a DVD of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony. The LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA has previously toured to many of the musical metropolises in Europe, as well as to New York, Tokyo, and Beijing. In the fall of 2018 they are travelling to La Scala in Milan and to Shanghai, China. 

Music director: Riccardo Chailly

Riccardo Chailly has been the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA’s Music Director since the summer of 2016. Born in 1953 in Milan, he studied at the Conservatories of Perugia, Rome, and Milan and at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana and began his career as an assistant to Claudio Abbado at La Scala in Milan. Chailly was appointed Music Director of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1980, and in 1988 he moved to the same position with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, which he helmed for sixteen years. From 2005 to the summer of 2016, Riccardo Chailly served as head of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and since January 2015 he has been Music Director of La Scala in Milan. Chailly regularly conducts such leading European orchestras as the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre de Paris. In the United States he has worked with the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As an opera conductor – in addition to his performances at La Scala – he has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House in London, Zurich Opera, the Bavarian and Vienna Staatsoper companies, Chicago Lyric Opera, and San Francisco Opera. Riccardo Chailly has received many prizes for his more than 150 CDs, including Gramophone magazine’s Record of the Year Award for his account of the Brahms symphonies. At the beginning of 2018 he released an album of early works by Stravinsky with the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA. Chailly is a Grand’ Ufciale della Repubblica Italiana, a Cavaliere di Gran Croce, and a Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion. In 1996 he was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London, and in France he has been an Ofcier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres since 2011.

Alexander Malofeev

«Alexander Malofeev manifests the piano mastery of the new millennium in itself.» (Il Giornale). «The latest phenomenon of the Russian piano school...» (Corriere della Sera).

- Such a warm response in the Italian media the debut concert of Alexander Malofeev at La Scala rose. «Russian genius» (Corriere della Sera) performed with maestro Valery Gergiev the first Tchaikovsky piano concerto.

«In contrast to what could be expected of a youngster aged 15, he demonstrated not only high technical accuracy but also an incredible maturity. Crystal clear sounds, perfectly balanced revealed the exceptional skill in playing…» (Amadeus) - On March 6, 2017 Alexander Malofeev opened the 30th anniversary concert of the famous Meesterpianisten serie in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam .

Alexander Malofeev is a young Russian pianist, mostly famous with his outstanding appearance at the 8th International Tchaikovsky Competition for young musicians (2014), where he won the I Prize and attained the overall recognition. In 2016 Alexander Malofeev won the Grand Prix of the International Competition for Young Pianists «Grand Piano Competition».   

In April 2017 in Italy, at the opening of the festival «International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo» Alexander Malofeev was awarded the «Premio Giovane Talento Musicale dell’anno 2017» - «Best Young Musician of 2017». In December 2017 Alexander became the first "Young Yamaha Artist"

Alexander was born in Moscow in October 2001. Now the young pianist studies at the Gnessin Moscow Special School of Music with Elena Berezkina, Honoured Cultural Worker of Russia. 

In his 17, Alexander Malofeev already performed in Moscow`s Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre, Moscow International Performing Arts Center, the Mariinsky Theatre, the State Kremlin Palace, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Teatro alla Scala (Milan), Kurhaus Wiesbaden (Germany), Munich Herkulessaal (Germany), Philharmonie de Paris, Theater of the Champs-Elysees (France), Kurhaus Wiesbaden (Germany), Queensland Performing Arts Centre (Australia), Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Shanghai Oriental Art Center, National Centre for the Performing Arts (China), Kaufman Music Center, UNESCO House.

He gave recitals in Russia , Azerbaijan, Armenia, Finland, Sweden, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Israel, China, Japan,  Australia and the United States.

Alexander has appeared with numerous orchestras including the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, Russian National Orchestra, State Chamber Orchestra "Moscow Virtuosi", RAI National Symphony Orchestra, State Symphony Orchestra Novaya Rossiya, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra, Baltic Sea Philharmonic orchestra, National Philharmonic Orchestra of  Russia, National Philharmonic orchestra of Armenia and the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, under the batons of conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Spivakov, Alexander Sladkovsky, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Myung-Whun Chung, Alondra de la Parra,  Kristjan Jarvi, Dmitry Liss, Eduard Topchjan, Kazuki Yamada, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Dimitris Botinis and Alexander Soloviev, to name but a few.

In 2016 Alexander Malofeev released his debut DVD film, recorded by Master Performers label in the Queensland Conservatorium Theatre, Brisbane (Australia).

Alexander Malofeev is a laureate of many Russian and International Competitions. There is a list of some of them. The young pianist was awarded Gran Prix and the Special Prize in the Ninth International Rachmaninoff Competition for Young Pianists (Veliky Novgorod, Russia, 2014), Gran Prix in the Moscow International Competition “Music diamond” (2011, 2014) , First Prize in the I «Astana Piano Passion» International Competition for Young Pianists (Astana, Kazakhstan, 2013), Gran Prix in the “Musical Art” International Competition for Young Performers and Composers (Moscow, Russia, 2013), Gold medal of the Youth Delphic Games of Russia (2015, 2012),  Gran Prix of the Artobalevskaya Festival (2012), Gran Prix in the «Mozart wunderkind» International Competition (Austria, 2011).

Also Alexander was a participant of the International de Piano de La Roque d’Anthéron Festival (France), participant La Folle Journée de Nantes (France), participant of the  «Rheingau Music Festival» (Germany), participant of the «Merano Music Festival» (Italy), participant of the Annesi classic Festival (France), participant of the Chopin Festival (France), participant of Denis Matsuev’s «Crescendo» Festival, participant of Valery Gergiev’s «Mikkeli Music Festival» (Finland) , participant of the Mariinsky International Piano Festival (St. Petersburg),  participant of  the «Denis Matsuev and friends», participant of the «Master Pianist Series» (Concertgebouw, Amsterdam), participant of the «Stars of the White Nights» International Music Festival (St. Petersburg), participant of the «Stars on Baikal» International Music Festival, participant of Vladimir Spivakov’s International «Moscow Meets Friends» Festival, participant International Winter Festival "Arts Square" directed by Yuri Temirkanov (St. Petersburg), Festival of Larisa Gergieva (Vladikavkaz),  participant of the «Eilat Chamber Music Festival» (Israel), participant of the «International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo» (Italy), participant of the «Peregrinos Musicais» Festival (Spain), and other.

Alexander Malofeev is a sholarship holder of "New Names" Charity Foundation and Vladimir Spivakov Charity Foundation.