Filarmonica della Scala, Riccardo Chailly, Alexander Malofeev

Filarmonica della Scala was founded in 1982 by the musicians of La Scala Opera House and Claudio Abbado with the aim of developing the symphonic repertoire. It has remained a self-directed ensemble to this day. Carlo Maria Giulini was its first conductor and led the first international tours; Riccardo Muti, principal conductor from 1987 to 2005, promoted its artistic growth and made it a regular guest of the most prestigious international concert halls. From the outset it has been led by a series of internationally renowned conductors, including Leonard Bernstein, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Seiji Ozawa, Zubin Mehta, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Riccardo Chailly, Yuri Temirkanov, Daniele Gatti, Fabio Luisi, Gustavo Dudamel. A deep collaboration has been established with Myung-Whun Chung, named Conductor Emeritus, and Daniel Harding. Daniel Barenboim, music director of La Scala from 2006 to 2015, and Valery Gergiev are honorary members, just as Georges Prêtre, Lorin Maazel, Wolfgang Sawallisch were. In 2015 Riccardo Chailly was named principal conductor. During the years that followed, the orchestra has reached a new performance standard. The tours they undertook and the recordings they have made also contributed to the reputation of the group.

Filarmonica has performed more than 800 concerts on tour. Important milestones have included the Orchestra’s debut in the United States with Riccardo Chailly and in China with Myung-Whun Chung. The Orchestra has a particular interest in contemporary music, and every season features a new commission by an important composer of our time.

Since 2013 Filarmonica della Scala hosts the Concerto per Milano in Piazza Duomo, an acclaimed free event which has had an attendance of more than 40,000 people every year. The educational project Sound, Music!, dedicated to primary school children, brings music to wider audiences and gives special attention to young people. Filarmonica also supports Milan’s main scientific institutions, social and voluntary bodies through special concerts and open rehearsals belonging to the series Prove Aperte. In 2024, the Municipality of Milan awarded the Filarmonica della Scala the Ambrogino d’oro, a certificate of Civic Merit reserved for Milanese personalities and entities who have significantly contributed to the city.

Filarmonica has made numerous recordings. In 2017 Decca published Ouvertures, Preludes and Intermezzi from operas premiered at La Scala and in 2019 The Fellini Album with film music by Nino Rota, followed by Cherubini Discoveries and Respighi, both part of the acclaimed series celebrating the great Italian composers. The last release celebrates music inspired by Italy and includes Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony alongside Schubert’s two Rossini-inspired overtures In the Italian Style and three early Mozart overtures to Italian operas first performed in Milan.

Filarmonica della Scala’s activity is supported by the Main Partner UniCredit.

source: Künstleragentur Dr. Raab & Dr. Böhm

photo © Andrea Veroni

Riccardo Chailly is Music Director of Teatro alla Scala and Principal Conductor of Filarmonica della Scala. He has been Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, the oldest orchestra in Europe, and served for 16 years as Principal Conductor of the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
He also serves as Music Director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, a position held in the past by Claudio Abbado.
He regularly conducts the most important European symphonic orchestras, including the Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He is regularly invited to festivals such as the Salzburg Festival and London’s BBC Proms.

As an opera conductor, his career includes productions at Teatro alla Scala, Wiener Staatsoper, New York Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, London Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper and Opernhaus Zurich. He is a Grand Officer of the Republic of Italy and a member of the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 1998 he was made Knight Grand Cross of the Republic of Italy; that same year, the Queen of the Netherlands vested him with the title of Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion. In 2011 he was appointed Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand.

Riccardo Chailly is a Decca exclusive artist. He has been honoured for his more than 150 CDs with many prizes, including the ECHO Klassik in 2012 and 2015; among the most recent prizes is the Gramophone Award as Recording of the Year for the complete edition of Brahms’ Symphonies. His recording activity with Filarmonica della Scala was renewed in 2013 with Viva Verdi, marking the 200th anniversary of Verdi’s birth. It includes a CD released in 2017 with Overtures, Preludes & Intermezzi from Operas that had their first performance at Teatro alla Scala; this was followed in 2019 by The Fellini Album with film music by Nino Rota. The latest releases are Cherubini Discoveries (2020), Respighi (2020) and Musa Italiana (2021), all part of the acclaimed series celebrating Italian composers and Italian influences in the music of European composers such as Mozart and Schubert.

source: Künstleragentur Dr. Raab & Dr. Böhm

photo © Stefano Guidani

Alexander Malofeev studied at legendary institutions such as the Gnessin Special College of Music and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.

In 2014, at the age of only thirteen, Alexander Malofeev won the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. Quickly hailed by critics as a “young Russian genius” (Corriere della Sera), he has since established himself as one of the most remarkable pianists of his generation.

Since his promising debut, Alexander has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, hr-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, Korean Symphony Orchestra and Baltic Sea Philharmonic.

He collaborates regularly with some of the most renowned conductors of our time, such as Riccardo Chailly, Myung-Whun Chung, Susanna Mälkki, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Alain Altinoglu, Lionel Bringuier, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Kirill Karabits, Hannu Lintu, Vasily Petrenko, Andris Poga, Fabio Luisi, Michael Tilson Thomas, Juraj Valčuha and Kazuki Yamada, among others.

In recent seasons, he has given concerts and recitals in major concert halls, including Musikverein Vienna, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Teatro alla Scala Milan, Philharmonie de Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Kurhaus Wiesbaden, Bolshoi Theatre and Mariinsky Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Lotte Concert Hall Seoul, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Shanghai Oriental Art Centre, National Centre for the Performing Arts Beijing and Royal Opera House Muscat.

Malofeev is a frequent guest at international festivals and renowned piano series such as La Roque d’Anthéron, La Folle Journée Nantes, Piano Festival Brescia and Bergamo, Master Pianist Series Amsterdam, Rheingau Music Festival, Verbier Festival, Tanglewood Festival and Celebrity Series Boston.

Highlights of the 2025/26 season include performances with Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Karina Canellakis, Wiener Symphoniker and Petr Popelka, solo recitals in Europe and the USA, as well as a concert tour with violinist María Dueñas. In June 2025, he was one of six pianists selected to perform at the Harmonies of Hope concert in the Vatican at the invitation of Pope Leo XIV.

Alexander Malofeev is an exclusive Sony Classical artist. His debut album for the label will be released in early 2026.

Born in Moscow in 2001, he now resides in Berlin.

source: Künstleragentur Dr. Raab & Dr. Böhm

photo © Xenie Zaset