In 2003, Italian conductor Claudio Abbado, and Michael Haefliger, chief executive and artistic director of the Lucerne Festival, co-founded the  Lucerne Festival Orchestra. The orchestra consists of the world's famous orchestra master, chamber musicians, music teachers, and members of Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. 

In 2016, the successor of Abbado, Riccardo Chailly initiated his journey of the Artistic Director with two concerts of Mahler: Symphony No. 8. Chailly was born in 1953 in Milan, he studied conducting in Perugia, Rome and Milan's Conservatory of Music and Istituto musicale pareggiato R.Franci di Siena. His conductor career started from the time when he served as an assistant conductor of Claudio Abbado in Milan's Teatro alla Scala.

Photo：Peter Fischli