Riccardo Chailly: the legendary conductor will appear in our Festival

In the upcoming weeks, we’ll be bringing you profiles of the stars to perform at our Festival this year. Today we’ll be taking a closer look at Riccardo Chailly, one of the world’s most esteemed and sought-after conductors of our time. Leading the Filarmonica della Scala, he will conduct the gala opening of this year’s 19th edition of the Dvořák Prague Festival, to appear before the same orchestra again a day later with pianist Alexander Malofeev.

At the helm of the most prominent orchestras

Riccardo Chailly is currently the music director of the celebrated Teatro alla Scala and chief conductor of the Filarmonica della Scala in Milan. Over the course of his distinguished career, he has led some of Europe’s most prestigious musical institutions. He served as the chief conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the oldest orchestra in Europe, and led the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam for an impressive sixteen years.

He is also currently the music director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. As a guest conductor, he regularly appears before most respected orchestras around the world, including the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics.

He is just as much at home in the world of opera. He has conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, London’s Covent Garden and the Vienna State Opera. He has received a number of prestigious honours for his artistic work: he is the holder of the Knight Grand Cross of the Italian Republic, and was appointed Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion and Officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters.

A highly acclaimed maestro

His musical mastery is documented on more than one hundred and fifty albums, recorded exclusively with Decca. He has received numerous major awards for his recordings, including two ECHO Klassik awards and the prestigious Gramophone Award for his complete recording of Brahms’ symphonies. With the Filarmonica della Scala, he released e.g. critically acclaimed The Fellini Album with film music by Nino Rota, as well as an exceptionally successful series of recordings celebrating famous Italian composers.

Come and see him at our Festival

The Festival gives you a unique chance to experience his charisma live. Riccardo Chailly will appear on Saturday 5 September, 2026 at 8 pm in the Dvořák Hall of Prague’s Rudolfinum at the Festival’s gala Opening Concert.

The Filarmonica della Scala will perform under his baton two truly iconic works by Antonín Dvořák: the notorious Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, From the New World and the magnificent Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B Minor. The solo part will be performed by the stellar Austrian cellist Julia Hagen.

On Sunday 6 September we can look forward to the orchestra’s performance with pianist Alexander Malofeev. The programme will feature works by Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.