Sir Antonio Pappano has been Music Director of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia since October 1, 2005; he had already become Music Director of London's Covent Garden in September 2002. Born in London in 1959 to Italian parents, he studied piano, composition and conducting in the USA. In the past, he has filled other prestigious positions: in 1990 he was named Music Director of Den Norske Opera of Oslo, the theater where he made his international debut, and from 1991 to 2002 he carried out the same role at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. Pappano is in demand as an opera conductor at the highest international level, including with the Metropolitan Opera New York, the State Operas of Vienna and Berlin, the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Théâtre du Châtelet and the Teatro alla Scala.Sir Antonio Pappano has conducted many of the world's major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the Bayerischer Rundfunk and London Symphony.Sir Antonio Pappano records extensively for Warner Classics and has made several recordings with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra and Chorus. Among his latest recordings are Verdi's Aida, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto no. 1 and Prokofiev's Piano Concerto no. 2 with Beatrice Rana at the piano, Nessun Dorma, The Puccini Album with Jonas Kaufmann, Schumann's Symphonies No.2 and No.4 (ICA Classics), the CD Anna Netrebko. Verismo (DG), Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3 and The Carnival of the Animals with Martha Argerich, the Bernstein's Symphonies, Verdi's Otello (with Kaufmann) and Strauss Ein Heldenleben.His awards and honors include: in 2012 he was created to Cavaliere di Gran Croce of the Republic of Italy, and to Knight of the British Empire for his services to music, and in 2015 he was named the 100th recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society's Gold Medal, the body's highest honor.In March 2021 he was announced as the next Chief Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (Designate from 2023/24).

He began studying piano at 6 years old and made his professional debut at 15. After graduating from conservatory in Florence in 1993 — and a brief experience as a shift worker in the world of pop with Raf and Jovanotti among others — he established himself in jazz, playing on stages such as the Town Hall in New York, La Scala in Milan and Umbria Jazz. The collaboration, which began in 1996 and never interrupted, is fundamental, with Enrico Rava, alongside whom he gives hundreds of concerts and records 13 records. The most recent: Tati (2005), _ The Third Man _ (2007) and _New York Days _ (2008). Throughout his career he collaborated with musicians such as Pat Metheny, Gato Barbieri, Richard Galliano, Sol Gabetta, Phil Woods, Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso and Chick Corea, with whom he made the live album Orvieto (2011). In 1998, at the helm of the group L'Orchestra del Titanic, he paid homage to Italian music of the '30s and '40s with Turn down your radio, disco-show in which Peppe Servillo, Irene Grandi, Marco Parente, Barbara Casini, Roberto Gatto collaborate. Particularly outside the canons, there are also works such as The Gnosis of the Fanfole, together with singer-songwriter Massimo Altomare on texts by Fosco Maraini (1998), Cantata dei Pastori Immobiliari, Musical oratory for four voices, based on texts by David Riondino (2004) and the disc of Scandinavian songs Gleda (2005). As an artistic producer and arranger, he also worked on Bodo Rondelli's album _Desperati Intellectuali Ubriaconi _ (2002), winning the Ciampi prize. Between 2002 and 2006 he recorded four albums for the French label Label Bleu: Les Fleures Bleues, Smat Smat, Concertone and The Visionaries. 2006 is also the year of Piano Solo (album of the year for 'Jazz Music'). In 2007 it comes out Carioca Bollanica, an album made together with great Brazilian artists: in December he was the second musician, after Antonio Carlos Jobim, to play a grand piano in a favela in Rio de Janeiro. Also in 2007, he won the European Jazz Prize and was included by the American magazine “Allaboutjazz” in the list of the five best musicians of the year together with Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus and Sonny Rollins. Among the most recent productions: Big Band (2013); Joy In Spite of Everything (2014); _Sheik Yer Zappa _ (2014), live dedicated to Frank Zappa; The Aliens Are Coming (2015), where he tries his hand at it for the first time as a singer-songwriter; Napoli Trip (2016), with Daniele Sepe, Manu Katché and Jan Bang among others. He also lends his piano to Italian pop-rock artists including Irene Grandi, with whom he signed the album Irene Grandi and Stefano Bollani (2012). In the classical field he performs as a soloist with symphony orchestras (Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Orchestre de Paris, Philharmonica della Scala in Milan, Santa Cecilia in Rome, Toronto Symphony Orchestra) alongside conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Kristjan Järvi, Daniel Harding, Antonio Pappano and especially Riccardo Chailly, with whom he recorded Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F by Gershwin on a CD (2010) that won the Platinum Record with more than 70,000 copies sold. This was followed by Maurice Ravel's Concerto in Sol (2012) and in 2013 a live DVD recorded at La Scala in Milan with the Concerto in F. His desire for experimentation borders on the publishing world. In 2006, for Baldini Castoldi Dalai, he published the novel The Brontolo Syndrome, followed by Let's Talk About Music (2013) and The Kid, the Guru, the Alchemist and Other Stories of Musicians (2015), both published by Mondadori. As a character, under the name of Paperefano Bolletta, he appears in the weekly Mickey Mouse, of which he is also appointed Ambassador. For the radio he is the creator and host, with David Riondino and Mirko Guerrini, of the show Doctor Djembè (Radio Rai 3, 2006-2012), from which the book Lo Zibaldone by Dottor Djembè was born (2008) and the TV special Good evening Doctor Djembè (Rai 3, 2010). Since 2009, the theme songs of Radio Rai 3 have been his. At the theater he collaborates, among others, with Claudio Bisio, Maurizio Crozza, Giuseppe Battiston, Marco Baliani, the Osiris Band, and writes the music for three shows by Lella Costa (Alice, a country wonder, Hamlet and Ragazze) and for theAntigone by Cristina Pezzoli. Honorary member of the Italian College of Pataphysics, he is co-author and actor in the show The Dada Queen, created together with Valentina Cenni in 2016. On television he is a regular guest of Renzo Arbore in the program The less we are the better we are (Rai 1, 2005) and creator, author and host of the two editions of Bollani supports (Rai 3, 2011 and 2013), with which he brings jazz music to the small screen. His most recent project is The important thing is to have a plan (Rai 1, 2016): seven late-night appointments on Rai1 with guests, improvisations and live music.

The Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia was the first orchestra in Italy to devote itself exclusively to the symphonic repertoire, giving premieres of major masterpieces of the 1900s, such as Respighi's Fountains of Rome and Pines of Rome. Founded in 1908, the Orchestra has been conducted by some of the major musical figures of the 20th century: from Mahler, Debussy, Saint-Saëns, Strauss, Stravinsky, Sibelius, Hindemith, Toscanini, Furtwängler, De Sabata, Karajan and Abbado to the most impressive performers of our day including Gergiev, Thielemann, Dudamel, Temirkanov while Bernardino Molinari, Franco Ferrara, Fernando Previtali, Igor Markevitch, Thomas Schippers, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Daniele Gatti, and Myung-Whun Chung have been its Music Directors. Leonard Bernstein was Honorary President from 1983 to 1990. With Sir Antonio Pappano in the role of Music Director since 2005, the stature of the Orchestra has enjoyed extraordinary success, building an international reputation for itself. With Pappano at the helm, the Orchestra has appeared at some of the major music festivals including the Proms in London, White Nights in St. Petersburg, Lucerne Festival, Salzburg Festival and has performed in some of the world's best-known venues, including the Philharmonie in Berlin, Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Royal Albert Hall in London, Salle Pleyel in Paris, La Scala in Milan, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Semperoper in Dresden, Carnegie Hall in New York.Santa Cecilia Orchestra records extensively for Warner Classic. Recent releases, under Pappano, include Nessun Dorma, The Puccini Album with tenor Jonas Kaufmann (Best Classical Music Recordings of 2015 for The New York Times), which made the world charts, Schumann's Symphonies no. 2 and no. 4, Elgar's Symphony no. 1 (ICA Classics), the CD "Anna Netrebko. Verismo" (DGG), Le Carnaval des Animaux with Martha Argerich, the Bernstein's Symphonies (Warner Classics), Verdi's Otello with Jonas Kaufmann (Sony Classical), Tudor Queens with Diana Damrau (Warner Classics) and Strauss: Ein Heldenleben/Burleske with Bertrand Chamayou (Warner Classics).