Muti receives Salzburg’s highest honour

Italian star conductor Riccardo Muti received the Ring of the State of Salzburg, the province’s highest honour, on Saturday, ORF reported. The award is given to a maximum of two people each year for exceptional service to Salzburg.

Salzburg Governor Karoline Edtstadler presented the ring to Muti after a concert. “For more than half a century, Riccardo Muti has stood at the conductor’s podium in Salzburg and has had a decisive influence on the festival with his productions,” Edtstadler said. She described his connection with the Salzburg Festival as unparalleled and said the award recognised his decades of loyalty, commitment and achievements.

Muti, 85, has conducted at the Salzburg Festival for more than 50 years. Herbert von Karajan invited him to conduct there in 1971, beginning a long series of opera and concert performances.

Across 54 festival seasons, Muti has conducted 270 opera and concert performances. From 2007 to 2011, he was artistic director of the Whitsun Festival, where he successfully focused on Neapolitan composers of the 18th century.

Muti has also conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de France. He has a particularly close relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic, with which he has regularly performed at the Salzburg Festival since 1971.

Muti lives in Ravenna and runs the Italian Opera Academy there. He received Salzburg’s Golden Medal of Honour on August 15, 2021.