Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia - Roma

The Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia - Roma was the first in Italy to dedicate itself exclusively to the symphonic repertoire, promoting premieres of 20th-century masterpieces, including Fontane di Roma and Pini di Roma by Ottorino Respighi. Since 1908, the Orchestra has collaborated with some of the greatest musicians of the century and has been conducted by figures such as Mahler, Debussy, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Sibelius, Hindemith, Toscanini and more. Its chief conductors have included Bernardino Molinari, Franco Ferrara, Fernando Previtali, Igor Markevitch, Thomas Schippers, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Daniele Gatti, Myung-Whun Chung and Sir Antonio Pappano (2005 to 2023). Since 2024, the British conductor Daniel Harding has become the Music Director of the Orchestra. From 1983 to 1990, Leonard Bernstein was the Honorary President.

The Orchestra has performed at major festivals such as the BBC Proms in London, the Lucerne Festival, the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg and the Salzburg Festival, as well as in prestigious concert halls, including the Berlin Philharmonie, Semperoper Dresden, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg , the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Royal Albert Hall in London, Salle Pleyel in Paris and more. In March 2024, the Orchestra and Choir were resident guests at the Salzburg Easter Festival.

In recent years, the Orchestra's extensive recording activities have garnered prestigious international awards. Among the recordings, Puccini's Turandot with Sondra Radvanovsky and Jonas Kaufmann, has won the International Classical Music Awards for "Best Opera". The Orchestra has also released a box set of 27 CDs, compiling the sacred and symphonic repertoire recorded under the baton of Pappano in the eighteen years. The latest recording of the Orchestra conducted by Daniel Harding was Puccini's Tosca, released in March 2025 by Deutsche Grammophon.

Source: Leisure and Cultural Services Department