Pier Giorgio Morandi
Conductor
Pier Giorgio Morandi was the Principal Oboist for the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala in Milan for ten years. He studied composition at Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, and conducting at Salzburg Mozarteum with Ferdinand Leitner.
During the years spent at La Scala, Morandi was Riccardo Muti’s and later Guiseppe Patanè’s Assistant Conductor, from whom he gained experience in refining the Italian repertoire and learning the secrets of the Italian operatic tradition.
In 1987 he studied Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa in Tanglewood, USA. In the same year, Morandi won the “Tanglewood Competition”, also known as “Bernstein Prize”. In 1989 he became the Deputy Principal Conductor at Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, where he conducted Ernani, Madama Butterfly and several symphonic concerts. In 1990, he recorded his first opera with Teatro dell’Opera, Paisiello’s Don Chisciotte. From 1991-96, he was the Principal Guest Conductor at Budapest National Opera House.
Morandi has a wide Italian operatic repertoire and has been working as a regular guest conductor since 1990 in all the major opera houses worldwide: Palermo, Trieste, Roma, Marseille, La Maestranza in Seville, Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, Osaka, National Opera Theatre in Seoul, Colon in Buenos Aires, Stockholm Royal Opera House, Theatre Royal de La Monnaie in Brussels, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Oper Frankfurt, Wiener Staatsoper, Macerata Opera Festival, Arena di Verona, Opernhaus Zürich, Goteborg, Teatro Regio di Parma, Napoli, Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, Bilbao, Maiorca, Las Palmas, Valencia, Copenhagen Royal Opera House, Seattle Opera and the Royal Albert Hall in London.
An appreciated interpreter of symphonic repertoire, Morandi has worked, among others, with Budapest Radio Orchestra, Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest State Orchestra, Flemish Radio Orchestra, Roma’s Santa Cecilia Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra del Filarmonico di Verona, San Remo Symphony Orchestra, Reggio Calabria Symphony Orchestra, Fukuoka Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra.
A prolific recording artist, Morandi has appeared in several releases, including the Verdi Gala DVD with tenor José Cura and the London Symphony Orchestra, and two Sony Classic CDs of tenor Vittorio Grigolo’s European tour.
Recent seasons’ highlights include La Fanciulla del West, Tosca and Un Ballo in Maschera at Stockholm Royal Opera House (where he held the position of Principal Guest Conductor), Aida in Oslo and Qatar, L’elisir d’amore, La Bohème and Don Carlo in Dresden, Maria Stuarda in Frankfurt, Macbeth at La Scala, Attila at the Palace of Arts in Budapest, Rigoletto in Naples and a symphonic concert at Musikverein in Graz.
Most recently, he has conducted Don Carlo, Aida and Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala, Otello in Copenhagen, Madama Butterfly in Oslo, Manon Lescaut, Rigoletto, Turandot, Madama Butterfly, La Bohème and La Traviata in Dresden, La Fanciulla del West in Frankfurt, Otello and L’elisir d’amore at the China National Center of Performing Arts in Bejing, Manon Lescaut at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Rigoletto at Opéra Bastille, Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the China National Center of Performing Arts and Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera.
He is at present Principal Guest Conductor at the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra.