Riccardo Chailly OMRI is an Italian conductor. He is currently music director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, since 2016, and music director of La Scala, since 2017. Prior to this, he held chief conducting positions at the Gewandhausorchester; the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra; and the Teatro Comunale of Bologna. He was also the first musical director of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi and principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Among the world's leading conductors, in a 2015 Bachtrack poll, he was ranked by music critics as the world's best living conductor.
Born in Milan, Chailly first studied composition with his father, Luciano Chailly, in his youth. He continued with composition at the conservatories in Milan and Perugia, but later shifted to conducting under Piero Guarino and Franco Ferrara. He made his conducting debut at La Scala in 1978 with Massenet's Werther, where he had been assistant director to Claudio Abbado since 1973.