The renowned La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra will make its first visit to Beijing on September 13, to raise the curtain on autumn concert series of National Centre for the Performing Arts.

La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra first performed on 25 January 1982 under the baton of its founder, Claudio Abbado. In the first season, the orchestra performed with many great conductors alongside Abbado including Georges Prêtre, Lorin Maazel, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Carlo Maria Giulini, who directed the orchestra on its first foreign tours.

Riccardo Muti, principal conductor from 1987 to 2005, contributed significantly to the international success achieved in recent years. In 2006, the Orchestra began new collaborations with Myung-Whun Chung, Daniele Gatti, Riccardo Chailly and Daniel Barenboim, who will conduct the opening concert of the 2008/2009 season.
 
With Riccardo Muti, the Orchestra performed at the Wiener Festwochen, at the Salzburg Festival and the Luzern Festival and also gave performances all over Europe and Asia. In 2006, tours included Istanbul, Belgrade and Budapest under the baton of Daniele Gatti, Warsaw, Moscow and Berlin with Myung-Whun Chung and the UK and Ireland with Riccardo Chailly. In 2007 the orchestra played in Lugano under Daniel Barenboim and in the US and Canada under Riccardo Chailly.

Many world-renowned conductors have contributed to the activity of the Orchestra, among them Leonard Bernstein, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Valery Gergiev, Myung-Whun Chung, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Gennadij and Riccardo Chailly, etc. Among the soloists that have played with the Orchestra are Maurizio Pollini, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, and Yuri Bashmet, etc. Some of the best singers in the world have worked with the Orchestra as well.

The Orchestra is dedicated to performing contemporary works and each year commissions a new piece of music by a major international composer.  The Orchestra enjoys recording partnerships with Sony, Decca and EMI. Recordings of particular significance include Beethoven's Symphonies with Carlo Maria Giulini, Rossini's Cantate with Riccardo Chailly and the entire Symphonic works of Beethoven conducted by Riccardo Muti at La Scala in 1998.

Conductor: Myung-Whun Chung
Myung-Whun Chung began his musical career as a pianist, making his debut with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of seven. In 1974 he won the second prize at the Tchaikovsky piano competition in Moscow. After his musical studies at the Mannes School and at the Juilliard School in New York, he became Carlo Maria Giulini's assistant in 1979 at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and two years later he was named Associate Conductor.

He was Music Director of the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1984 to 1990, Principal Guest Conductor of the Teatro Comunale of Florence from 1987 to 1992 and Music Director of the Opéra de Paris-Bastille from 1989 to 1994. The year 2000 marked his return to Paris as Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. His love for Italy has been at the basis of his extensive work in that country for many years, including, from 1997 to 2005, his position as Principal Conductor of the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome. Outside Europe, he has been increasingly committed to musical and social causes in Asia through his role as Music Advisor of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and, from 2006, Music Director of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.

He has conducted virtually all the world's leading orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic, the Concertgebouworkest, all the major London and Parisian Orchestras, Filharmonica della Scala, Bayerische Rundfunk, Dresden Staatskapelle, the Boston and Chicago Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras.

He is an exclusive recording artist for Deutsche Grammophon, and many of his numerous recordings have won international prizes and awards. These include Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony and Eclairs sur l'Au-Delà, Verdi's Otello, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth with the Orchestre de l'Opéra Bastille; a series of Dvorák's symphonies and serenades with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, a series dedicated to the great sacred music with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Recent releases include Messiaen's La transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ and Des Canyons aux étoiles with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.

He has been the recipient of many honours and prizes for his artistic work, including the Premio Abbiati and the Arturo Toscanini prize in Italy and the Légion d'Honneur (1992) in France; in 1991, the Association of French Theatres and Music Critics named him "Artist of the year" and in 1995 he won three times the prize "Victoire de la Musique".

Deeply sensitive to humanitarian and ecological problems of our age, Myung-Whun Chung has devoted an important part of his life to these causes. In 1994 he launched a series of musical and environmental projects in Korea for youth. He served as Ambassador for the Drug Control Program at the United Nations (UNDCP); in 1995, he was named "Man of the year" by UNESCO and also "Most Distinguished Personality" by the Korean press association. In 1996, he received the "Kumkuan", the highest cultural award of the Korean government for his contribution to Korean musical life. Chung now serves as Honorary Cultural Ambassador for Korea, the first in the Korean government's history.  In 2008, he was designated the first conductor named as "Goodwill Ambassador" for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Programs
Rossini – Guglielmo Tell, Overture
Rossini –L'Italiana in Algeri, Overture
Puccini– Manon, Intermezzo
Verdi – Forza del destino, Overture
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 4