After a career spanning more than 20 years as a gifted cello soloist and orchestral musician, Umberto Clerici has consolidated his diverse artist achievements to rapid acclaim as a conductor. Umberto is now the Chief Conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.

Umberto began his career as a virtuoso cellist making his solo debut at the age of 17 performing Haydn’s D Major cello concerto in Japan. After years of performing on the stages of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, Umberto took up the position as Principal cello of the Teatro Regio di Torino following which he was Principal Cello of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2021.

It was in Sydney in 2018 that Umberto made his conducting debut with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House. Following a swift trajectory of prestigious conducting engagements, Umberto is now in high demand across Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

In addition to his role Chief Conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Umberto's recent conducting engagements include Elgar’s cello concerto with Steven Isserlis for the Volksoper Vienna, and debuts with Orchestra del Teatro Massimo in Palermo and Orchestra Regionale Toscana. Umberto has also curated a three-week series with the Sydney Symphony for ‘Symphony Hour’ and returned to the podiums of the Dunedin, Melbourne and West Australian Symphony Orchestras.  

In November 2024, Queensland Symphony Orchestra announced the extension of Umberto’s Chief Conductorship until the end of their Season 2027.

Highlights in 2025 will include conducting Daniil Trifonov playing Rachmaninov’s piano concerto No.3 with New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, a return to Teatro Massimo in Palermo and his second collaboration with Opera Queensland for which Umberto will conduct Puccini’s La Boheme.

As a cellist, Umberto remains beloved by audiences worldwide, having performed internationally as a soloist at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Vienna’s Musicverein, the great Shostakovich Hall of St Petersburg, Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, the Salzburg Festival and is one of only two Italians to have ever won a prize for cello in the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition.

Umberto plays cellos by Matteo Goffriller (made in 1722, Venezia) and Carlo Antonio Testore (made in 1758, Milano).

‘Xavier de Maistre is a virtuoso of the highest order, profoundly musical and capable of realising a remarkable range of nuance.’ (Gramophone)

Xavier de Maistre is one of today’s leading harpists and a profoundly creative musician. As a fierce champion of his instrument, he has broadened the harp repertoire, commissioning new works from composers. He also creates transcriptions of important instrumental repertoire.

The 2025–2026 season was marked by the release of a Handel album (Sony Classical) with the Lucerne Festival Strings, which led him to major venues such as the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Berlin Konzerthaus, Cologne Philharmonie, Frankfurt Alte Oper, KKL Lucerne, Stuttgart Liederhalle, Staatstheater Braunschweig, Brucknerhaus Linz and Stadttheater Olten. Highlights of the season also included performances with first-class orchestras and conductors, including the Budapest Festival Orchestra with David Robertson, the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony under Sebastian Weigle in Tokyo and the Munich Chamber Orchestra. He will present a carte blanche project De Maistre & Friends with Rolando Villazón, Lucero Tena and Magali Mosnier, at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, where he returns later in the season as part of the Mozart Week for a performance with the Camerata Salzburg. Xavier will also continue touring his signature projects across Europe, including Serenata Latina with Rolando Villazón and Nuits Fantastiques with Lambert Wilson.

He is regularly invited by first-class orchestras across the globe: Chicago, Montréal, City of Birmingham, Swedish and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestras; Los Angeles, London, St Petersburg, Oslo and China Philharmonic Orchestras; Orchestre de Paris, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo; working with conductors including Sir André Previn, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, Daniele Gatti, Philippe Jordan, Bertrand de Billy, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Daniel Harding, Susanna Mälkki and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.

As a recital soloist, he has been a guest at many top festivals, including Rheingau, Salzburger Festspielen, Wiener Festwochen, Verbier, Budapest Spring, Würzburg Mozartfest and Mostly Mozart in New York. He is passionate about chamber music and regularly puts together original recital projects, including numerous collaborations with highly versatile artists like tenor Rolando Villazón, flamenco and castanet legend Lucero Tena, Diana Damrau, Arabella Steinbacher, Daniel Müller-Schott, Baiba Skride, Antoine Tamestit, Mojca Erdmann or Magali Mosnier.

Xavier has been an exclusive Sony Music artist since 2008, when he recorded his first album, Nuit d’Etoiles, dedicated to Debussy. Further releases include Hommage à Haydn (2009), Aranjuez (2010), Notte Veneziana (2012), Moldau (2015), and La Harpe Reine (2016) with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie. His album Christmas Harp (October 2021) features paraphrases and fantasies of famous Christmas carols. He recorded a highly acclaimed Serenata Latina album with Rolando Villazon (Deutsche Gramophone) in 2020. In autumn 2022, his latest CD dedicated to Russian music was released, featuring Reinhold Glière's famous harp concerto and Alexander Mosolov's forgotten concerto, accompanied by WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln under the baton of Nathalie Stutzmann.

Born in Toulon, Xavier studied the harp with Vassilia Briano at his local conservatoire, before perfecting his technique with Catherine Michel and Jacqueline Borot in Paris. He also studied at Sciences-Po Paris and then at the London School of Economics. In 1998 he was awarded First Prize (and two interpretation prizes) at the prestigious USA International Harp Competition (Bloomington). He became the first French musician to be admitted to the Wiener Philharmoniker that same year.

He has taught at Musikhochschule in Hamburg since 2001.

De Maistre plays on a Lyon & Healy instrument.