What is Claudio Abbado?
{{Infobox person | name = Claudio Abbado | image = Claudio Abbado Senato.jpg | birth_date = 26 June 1933 | death_date = 20 January 2014 | nationality = [[Italians|Italian]] | occupation = Music [[conductor]] }} '''Claudio Abbado''' (26 June 1933 – 20 January 2014),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Abbado-Claudio.htm|title=Claudio Abbado (Conductor)- Short Biography|publisher=Bach Cantatas|access-date=1 January 2013}}</ref> was an [[Italy|Italian]] [[Conducting|conductor]]. He conducted many of the world’s greatest orchestras. ==Early life== Abbado was born in [[Milan]], [[Italy]]. His father played the [[violin]] and [[Composition (music)|composed]]. He started to learn the piano from his father. He studied music at the Milan Conservatory and often had the opportunity to listen to famous conductors rehearsing, e.g. [[Arturo Toscanini]], [[Bruno Walter]] and [[Wilhelm Furtwängler]]. He did not like the way that Toscanini shouted and yelled at the orchestra. He knew that he did not want to be like him. ===Education=== He studied conducting at the Vienna Academy of Music. In 1958, he won the international Koussevitsky competition for conductors. Soon he was invited to conduct in many parts of Italy. In 1963 he won the Dmitri Mitropoulos Competition for conductors. This allowed him to work for five months with the [[New York Philharmonic]]. ==Career== [[File:Claudio Abbado 2008.jpg|thumb|right|210px|Abbado in [[Berlin]], May 2008]] He first conducted at [[La Scala]] in Milan in 1960. He was music director there from 1968 to 1986. He conducted the [[Vienna Philharmonic]] for the first time in 1965 in a concert at the [[Salzburg Festival]]. He was music director for the [[Vienna State Opera]] from 1986 to 1991, where he conducted traditional operas as well as new, 20th-century operas. He was principal conductor of the [[London Symphony Orchestra]] from 1979 to 1987. In the US, he was principal guest conductor of the [[Chicago Symphony Or