Riccardo Chailly’s dream team to perform in Korea

Riccardo Chailly’s dream team to perform in Korea. October. 02, 2017 07:33. by Dong-Wook Kim creating@donga.com.

Soccer fans might have imagined a dream team made up of best players from each club. What if there is such a dream team in orchestra?

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra (LFO), performing for the first time in Korea on Oct. 12 in Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul, is dubbed a dream team of orchestra. World-renowned Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly (64) will lead the team. Chailly is one of the most representative three Italian maestros along with Claudio Abbado (1933-2014) and Riccardo Muti (76).

“The Lucerne Festival Orchestra has the best performers from world-class orchestras and presents the best music to the audience,” said Chailly, who has been LFO’s music director since last year. “The performers have various experiences, but we pursue unity that is a unique trait of our orchestra.”

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra consists of former and incumbent members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Royal Concertgebouw and others, with members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra at the center. As the orchestra is not a permanent orchestra as it is formed for the Lucerne Festival, it rarely performs in other events than the festival.

Most critics believe that the current reputation was built by Abbado who took the position of music director in 2003. Chailly, who worked as an apprentice of Abbado, the then principal conductor of La Scala, at the age of 18, is assessed to be well-fitted for the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, which is the heritage of Abbado.