Gianluigi Gelmetti is one of today’s most prestigious conductors. Since his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Italian conductor, pupil of Sergiu Celibidache, Franco Ferrara and Hans Swarowski, regularly appears on the podium of the world’s most important opera houses and festivals.
He was Principal Conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra for ten years and Music Director of the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome from 2000 to 2009. Since 2004, he is Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He also regularly works at the Monte Carlo Opera and the Royal Opera house-Covent Garden.
Maestro Gelmetti is specialized in the Italian and French operatic repertory of the 19th and 20th Century, including revivals and premieres of rarely performed works. In Italy, he has conducted numerous productions at the Rossini Opera Festival, receiving the “Rossini d’Oro” award with Guillaume Tell in 1999. He was also awarded the Tokyo critics’ prize “Best Performance of the Year” with Beethoven’s Symphony n.9 in 1997.
In 2006, he led a triumphal “double-tourneé” to Japan, both presenting with the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome and leading the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in concerts with music of Ravel and Tchaikovsky.
He recently conducted: Falstaff at the Opéra in Monte Carlo; Guillaume Tell at the Opernhaus Zurich; La Forza del Destino in Parma; Les Vepres Siciliennes in Naples; Turandot in Tokyo; Il Barbiere di Siviglia in Toulouse; Francesca da Rimini, Amica and Das Rheingold in Monte Carlo; Guillaume Tell in Zurich; Un Ballo in Maschera in Trieste; La Fanciulla del West in Liège; and numerous symphonic concerts in Berlin and Copenhagen.
His catalogue, recorded mostly for EMI but also for Sony, Ricordi, Fonit, Teldec and Agorà, shows the extent and complexity of his repertoire, including: several operas by Rossini, Puccini and Mozart; Ravel orchestral music; Mozart Symphonies; and selected works by Stravinsky, Berg, Webern, Varèse and Rota. Recent releases include Bruckner’s Symphony n.6 and Rossini’s Stabat Mater.
Maestro Gelmetti is also the composer of, among many others: In Paradisum Deducant Te Angeli, premiered by the Orchestra and Choir of Teatro dell'Opera in Rome and later performed in London, Munich, Frankfurt, Budapest, Sydney and Stuttgart; Algos for big orchestra, premiered in 1997 by the Münchener Philharmoniker; and Prasanta Atma, commissioned in 1999 to celebrate Sergiu Celibidache. In 2000, the Teatro Comunale in Bologna commissioned him Cantata della Vita for choir, cello solo and orchestra.
He teaches orchestral conducting at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena since 1997 and at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
He was named "Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" in France and "Cavaliere di Gran Croce" by Italy’s President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
His future plans include: Don Giovanni and Die Fledermaus in Trieste.
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