Simon Rattle

Sir Simon Denis Rattle (born 19 January 1955) is a British conductor. He rose to international prominence during the 1980s and 1990s, while music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1980–1998). Rattle was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic from 2002 to 2018, and music director of the London Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2023. He has been chief conductor of Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra since September 2023. Among the world's leading conductors, in a 2015 Bachtrack poll, he was ranked by music critics as one of the world's best living conductors.

Rattle is also the patron of Birmingham Schools' Symphony Orchestra, arranged during his tenure with CBSO in the mid-1990s. The Youth Orchestra is now under the auspices of charitable business Services for Education. He received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2001 at the Classic Brit Awards.

Biography

Early life

Simon Rattle was born in Liverpool, England, the son of Pauline Lila Violet (née Greening) and Denis Guttridge Rattle, a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during World War II. He was educated at Liverpool College. Although Rattle studied piano and violin, his early work with orchestras was as a percussionist for the Merseyside Youth Orchestra (now the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra). He entered the Royal Academy of Music (now part of the University of London) in 1971. There, his teachers included John Carewe. In 1974, his graduation year, Rattle won the John Player International Conducting Competition.