About us

Born in London in 1959 to Italian parents, he studied piano, composition and conducting in the United States. Among the more impressive steps in his career must be cited his debuts at the Vienna Staatsoper in 1993, at the Metropolitan in New York in 1997 and at the Bayreuth Festival in 1999.

Sir Antonio has conducted many of the world’s major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Symphony Orchestra of the Bayerische Rundfunk, the Vienna Philharmonic and the London Symphony. In 1997 he was named Principal Guest Conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

With the Santa Cecilia ensembles, he performs 9 concerts every season at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome (the splendid structure created by Renzo Piano), in Sala Santa Cecilia which, with its 2,800 seats, is the largest concert hall in Europe.

Sir Antonio Pappano records extensively for EMI Classics and many of his recordings have received important recognition. In 2005, he was named “Conductor of the Year” by the Royal Philharmonic Society; that same year he also received the “Abbiati” Prize, awarded by Italian Music Critics, for his conducting of the Requiems by Brahms, Britten and Verditogether with the Artistic Ensembles of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

In his seventh year as Music Director of the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, he has already led the musicians on tours to Spain, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, Russia, Japan, Holland and France, attaining great public and critical success everywhere. For the year 2011, important concerts have already been scheduled in Great Britain, Benelux, Germany, at the Salzburg Festival and in the Far East, among other engagements.

Sir Antonio has made several recordings with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra and Chorus for EMI Classics and many of his recordings have received important recognition: two all-Tchaikovsky CDs (Overtures & Fantasies and the last three symphonies by the great Russian composer); one with cellist Han-Na Chang entitled Romance with music by Lalo,Dvorák, Glazunov and Saint-Saëns; and another devoted to music by Respighi. In 2008 Sir Antonio Pappano directed a recording of Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly and in 2009, a live recording of the Verdi Requiem which,released the same year, received the 2010 BBC Music Magazine Award as best recording (choral section) and the 2010 Classical Brits Critics Award. His most recent recognition, also for the Verdi Requiem, was a 2010 Gramophone Award.

Among his latest recordings are: the Stabat Mater by Rossini for EMI with an all-star cast – Anna Netrebko, Joyce DiDonato, Lawrence Brownlee, Ildebrando D’Arcangelo and the Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; the Stabat Mater by Pergolesi (recorded in July 2010 for Deutsche Grammophon with Anna Netrebko and Marianna Pizzolato); Verismo Arias with Jonas Kaufmann (recorded for Decca) and the opera William Tell by Rossini, which inaugurated the 2010-2011 Season at the Accademia and was recorded live by EMI. The last CDs, that have just been released, under Pappano’s direction with Santa Cecilia is Rachmaninoff’s Symphony no. 2 and Liadov’s The Enchanted Lake and the Symphony No. 6 by Mahler.

In May 2010 Sir Antonio presented a widely-acclaimed series, ‘Opera Italia’, for BBC television.

On 16 April 2007 Sir Antonio Pappano was named an Active Accademician of Santa Cecilia and in December 2008 he was honored with the title of Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. The last decoration is the knighthood for his services to music in the 2012 Queen’s New Year’s Honours List.