The Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia was the first in Italy to to devote itself exclusively to the symphonic repertoire, promoting premieres of 20th-century masterpieces. Since 1908 to today it has collaborated with the greatest musicians of the century: it has been conducted by from Mahler, Debussy, Strauss, Stravinsky, Toscanini, Furtwängler, De Sabata, Karajan, Abbado and Kirill Petrenko, among others. Its permanent conductors have been Molinari, Ferrara, Previtali, Markevitch, Schippers, Sinopoli, Gatti, Chunge, and Sir Antonio Pappano (2005-2023), who will be succeeded in October 2024 as the new Music Director by Englishman Daniel Harding. From 1983 to 1990 Leonard Bernstein was its Honorary President. The Orchestra and Chorus have been guests at major festivals: the London Proms, Lucerne Festivals, White Nights in St. Petersburg, Salzburg, and the most prestigious from concert halls, including the Philharmonie in Berlin, Musikverein in Vienna, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Royal Albert Hall in London, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Carnegie Hall in New York. His intense recording activity in recent years has been crowned from several international awards and prizes. Recent recordings conducted from Antonio Pappano include Verdi's Otello with Jonas Kaufmann, Cinema with Alexandre Tharaud on piano, Insieme-Opera Duets with Jonas Kaufmann and Ludovic Tézier, Rossini's Messa di Gloria recently awarded at the International Classical Music Awards in the "Choral Music" section, and Puccini's Turandot with Sondra Radvanovsky and Jonas Kaufmann (March 2023, Warner Classics).

Embodying music with unparalleled dramatic sensitivity, soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan is an artist at the forefront of creation. The Grammy Award-winning Canadian musician has demonstrated a deep commitment to the music of our time and has premiered more than ninety new creations. With a 30-year career, Hannigan's artistic colleagues have included Reinbert de Leeuw, Pierre Boulez, Sasha Waltz, John Zorn, Krszysztof Warlikowski, Simon Rattle, Katie Mitchell, Henri Dutilleux, Vladimir Jurowski, Gyorgy Ligeti, Kirill Petrenko, George Benjamin, Andreas Kriegenburg, and Hans Abrahamsen. He is Principal Guest Conductor of the Göteborgs Symfoniker, Première Artiste Invitée of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Associate Artist of the London Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra from Lausanne Chamber (from 2024/25 onwards) and Reinbert de Leeuw Professor of Music at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She has released six albums with Alpha Classics, including her latest disc, Infinite Voyage, in 2023. Barbara's commitment to the younger generation of musicians led her to to create the mentoring initiatives Equilibrium Young Artists (2017) and Momentum: our Future Now (2020). Barbara resides in Finistère, on the northwest coast of France, just across the Atlantic from where she grew up to Waverley, Nova Scotia.