Musical America 'Musician of the Year' 2010 Announced
18 November 2009
Riccardo Muti
Italian conductor Riccardo Muti has been named ‘Musician of the Year’ 2010 by Musical America. The former music director of the Teatro alla Scala, where he was a controversial figure, will be presented with his award at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on 14 December 2009.
For Muti, this will be just one of several reasons to celebrate next year. At the Salzburg Festival in August he will mark the 40th anniversary of his debut there, as well as giving his 200th performance and leading two important new projects: a new production of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice directed by Dieter Dorn, and three performances with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra of Prokofiev’s oratorio, Ivan the Terrible, narrated by Gérard Depardieu.
Muti’s long association with Salzburg Festival began in 1971 when he conducted Donizetti’s Don Pasquale at the invitation of Herbert von Karajan. Having subsequently appeared at every Festival, Muti was invited in 2006 by artistic director Jürgen Flimm to take on the leadership of Salzburg’s Whitsun festival. Now in the fourth year of this five-year contract, Muti’s programme for May 2010 will include Mozart’s azione sacra, Betulia liberata, directed by Marco Gandini and performed by Muti’s own Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini.
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