Sir Simon Denis Rattle was born on January 19, 1955. He is a British conductor who became well-known worldwide during the 1980s and 1990s. He led the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1980 to 1998. From 2002 to 2018, he was the main conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. He also served as music director of the London Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2023. Since September 2023, he has been the chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In a 2015 poll by Bachtrack, music critics ranked him among the best living conductors in the world.

Sir Rattle is also the patron of the Birmingham Schools' Symphony Orchestra. He helped start the orchestra during his time with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in the mid-1990s. The Youth Orchestra is now managed by a charity that supports education. In 2001, he received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music at the Classic Brit Awards.

Biography

Simon Rattle was born in Liverpool, England, to Pauline Lila Violet and Denis Guttridge Rattle, who was a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during World War II. He studied at Liverpool College. Although he learned to play the piano and violin, he first worked with orchestras as a percussionist for the Merseyside Youth Orchestra, which is now called the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. In 1971, he entered the Royal Academy of Music, which is now part of the University of London. His teachers included John Carewe. In 1974, the year he graduated, he won the John Player International Conducting Competition.

After performing Mahler's Second Symphony while still at the academy, he was discovered by Martin Campbell-White, a music agent who has managed his career since. He studied English Language and Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford, from 1980 to 1981. He was drawn to the college because of Dorothy Bednarowska, a respected English tutor. In 1991, he was named an Honorary Fellow of St Anne's. In 1999, he received an honorary doctorate in music from the University of Oxford.

In 1974, he became an assistant conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. In 1975, at age 20, he joined the Glyndebourne Festival Opera music staff. Over the next 28 years, he conducted more than 200 performances of 13 different operas at Glyndebourne and on tour. His first performance at the Royal Albert Hall, conducting the London Sinfonietta, was on August 9, 1976. The program included works by Harrison Birtwistle and Arnold Schoenberg. In 1977, he became an assistant conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

From 1980 to 1998, he worked with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). In 1980, he became the CBSO's principal conductor and artistic adviser, and in 1990, its music director. During his time with the CBSO, he helped raise the orchestra's profile and led a concert series called "Towards the Millennium," which focused on 20th-century music. In 1991, the CBSO moved to a new concert hall called Symphony Hall. A film about his final year with the CBSO was made by Jaine Green.

In 1987, Rattle was appointed a CBE, and in 1994, he was made a Knight Bachelor. In 1992, he became a principal guest conductor of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE), along with Frans Brüggen. He is now titled Principal Artist with the OAE. In 2001, he conducted the OAE at Glyndebourne in their first production of Fidelio using period instruments.

Rattle supported youth music and led two attempts to set a record for the World's Largest Orchestra. The first, in 1996, was not successful. The second, in 1998, succeeded with nearly 4,000 musicians. This record was later broken in 2000. In 2000, he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society. From April to May 2002, he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic, recording all of Beethoven's symphonies. In 2006, he became an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Arts. In 2011, the Royal Academy of Music gave him an honorary doctorate. In 2014, he was appointed a member of the Order of Merit.

In 2012, Rattle conducted the London Symphony Orchestra during the opening of the London Olympics, performing "Chariots of Fire" with guest Rowan Atkinson. He made his conducting debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1987, performing Mahler's Symphony No. 6. In 1999, he became the orchestra's principal conductor after a vote by its members. His appointment was controversial because some members had preferred Daniel Barenboim. Rattle won the position and ensured fair pay for orchestra members and artistic independence from the Berlin Senate.

He reorganized the Berlin Philharmonic into a foundation, giving members more control over its activities. His first concert as principal conductor was in 2002, featuring works by Thomas Adès and Mahler. He also led projects with local communities, such as a performance of The Rite of Spring danced by school children. In 2007, the BPO/Rattle recording of Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem won a Grammy award.

Rattle's contract with the Berlin Philharmonic was originally set to end in 2012, but in 2008, musicians voted to extend it until 2018. In 2013, he announced his planned departure from the orchestra, which ended in 2018. UNICEF named him and the BPO as Goodwill Ambassadors in 2007. He is also a patron of the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

Rattle made his North American debut in 1976, conducting at the Hollywood Bowl. He first worked with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1979 and was their principal guest conductor from 1981 to 1994. He has also guest-conducted other major orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 2000, he was the music director of the Ojai Music Festival. He made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1993 and returned for guest performances in 1999 and 2000.

Awards

• 1987 New Year Honours, Commander of the British Empire (CBE)
• 1994 Birthday Honours, Knight Bachelor
• 1996 Shakespeare Prize by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation
• 2000 Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists
• 2009 Gold Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture
• 2010 Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur
• 2012 Wolf Prize in Arts Laureate in Music
• 2012 Gramophone Hall of Fame
• 2013 Léonie Sonning Music Prize
• 2014 New Year Honours, Member of the Order of Merit (OM)
• 2016 Helpmann Award, Best Orchestral Concert of the Year
• 2022 Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 2025 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize

Musical styles and recordings

Sir Simon Rattle has performed a wide range of music, including pieces played on period instruments (instruments from the past, either original ones or modern ones made to look like those from the past). He is most famous for his performances of music by composers from the late 1800s and early 1900s, such as Gustav Mahler. A recording of Mahler's Second Symphony won several awards when it was released. He has also supported many modern musical works. One example is the 1996 TV series Leaving Home, where he presented a 7-part overview of different musical styles and conductors, with music performed by the CBSO.

Other recordings made in Berlin include works by Antonín Dvořák, Mahler's Symphony No. 9, and Claude Debussy's La Mer. The Gramophone Magazine praised the La Mer recording as a "magnificent disc" and compared it favorably to versions by earlier conductors, Claudio Abbado and Herbert von Karajan. He has also worked with the Toronto Children's Chorus. Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra recorded Gustav Holst's The Planets (EMI Classics), which was named the BBC Music Magazine Orchestra Choice. Additionally, Rattle's complete 1989 recording of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess was used as the soundtrack for the 1993 TV production of the work. This was the first time Porgy and Bess was shown on television.

Rattle's 2007 recording of Johannes Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem was praised by BBC Music Magazine as "Disc of the Month" for April 2007, with the magazine calling it "probably the best new version of the Requiem I've heard in quite some years." Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra have also recorded Anton Bruckner's Fourth Symphony (Romantic) and Joseph Haydn's Symphonies Nos. 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, and Sinfonia Concertante.

Rattle's 2007 recording of Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra won the Choral Performance Grammy Award in 2008. He has also received two other Grammy Awards: one for a Choral Performance Award for a recording of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms in 2007, and another for Best Orchestral Performance for a recording of Mahler's unfinished Symphony No. 10 in 2000.

Personal life

Rattle's first wife was Elise Ross, an American singer. They had two sons: Sacha, who plays the clarinet, and Eliot, who is a painter. They divorced in 1995 after 15 years of marriage. In 1996, he married Candace Allen, a writer from the United States. This marriage ended in 2004. In 2008, Rattle married Magdalena Kožená, a Czech mezzo-soprano. They live in Berlin and have two sons and a daughter.

Rattle is a member of the Incorporated Society of Musicians and supports the Liverpool Football Club.

In January 2021, Rattle said he applied for German citizenship. He called it very important for him to work freely in the European Union after Brexit.