Fabio Mastrangelo

Fabio Mastrangelo is Principal Guest Conductor of the Novosibirsk Academic Symphony Orchestra, the State Symphony Orchestra of Tatarstan, the State Hermitage Orchestra and the State Opera and Ballet Theatre of Yekaterinburg as well as Artistic Director of the Novosibirsk Camerata and a regular Guest Conductor at the Mariinsky Theatre and of the St Petersburg State Theatre of Musical Comedy.

He was born in 1965 in Bari to a family of musicians. He began his music studies at the faculty of piano of the Conservatorio Niccolò Piccinni in Bari under Pierluigi Camicia. While still a student, he won nationwide piano competitions in Osimo (1980) and Rome (1986). He trained at the Geneva Conservatoire under Maria Tipo and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he attended master classes by Aldo Ciccolini, Seymour Lipkin and Paul Badura-Skoda. Mastrangelo regularly appears in concerts as a pianist to this day, performing in Italy, Canada, the USA and Russia.

Conducting studies followed at the Pescara Academy of Music under Gilberto Serembe (Italy) and in Vienna under Leonard Bernstein and Karl Österreicher in Vienna and at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome; he has attended master classes of Neeme Järvi and Jorma Panula. In 1990 the musician received a grant to study at the faculty of music of the University of Toronto, and after graduating he led the Virtuosi di Toronto chamber ensemble he had established as well as the Hart House string orchestra at the University of Toronto. Later, he taught conducting at the faculty of music at the University of Toronto.

Fabio Mastrangelo is a prize-winner at young conductors´ competitions including Mario Gusella – 1993, Mario Gusella – 1995 (Pescara) and Donatella Flick – 2000 (London).

As a Guest Conductor, Fabio Mastrangelo has worked with the National Academy Orchestra in Hamilton, the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, the Brantford Symphony Orchestra, the University of North Carolina Symphony Orchestra in Greensboro, the Szeged Symphony (Hungary), the Pärnu Symphony Orchestra (Estonia), the Wiener Festival String Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmonisches Kammerorchester, the Simfonietta Riga (Latvia), the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (Kiev) and the Philharmonic Orchestras of Tampere (Finland), Bacău (Romania) and Nice (France).

In 1997, the maestro led the Symphony Orchestra of Bari and conducted orchestras in Taranto, Palermo and Pescara as well as the Orchestra Filarmonica di Roma. For two seasons (2005–2007) he was Music Director of the Società dei Concerti Orchestra (Bari), with which he twice toured to Japan. Today, Fabio Mastrangelo also performs with the Symphony Orchestra of Vilnius, the Orchestra of the Arena di Verona, the St Petersburg and Moscow Philharmonic Orchestras, the St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra, the St Petersburg State Capella Orchestra and various ensembles from Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and several other cities. Between 2001 and 2006, Fabio Mastrangelo directed the Étoiles du Château de Chailly international festival in France.

As an opera conductor, Mastrangelo has worked with the Opera di Roma (Aida, 2009) and numerous theatres in St Petersburg and Voronezh. Since 2006, he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Petruzzelli Theatre in Bari, Italy´s “youngest” opera house, which recently made it onto the list of the world´s great theatres alongside the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. In summer 2008, Mastrangelo inaugurated the Taormina Arts Festival (Sicily) with a new production of Aida, while December 2009 will mark his debut at the opera house in Sassari (Italy) with a new production of Lucia di Lammermoor.

Mastrangelo´s conducting debut at the Mariinsky Theatre came with Tosca starring Maria Guleghina and Vladimir Galuzin (2007), which was followed by his first appearance at the Stars of the White Nights festival (2008).

The musician collaborates with the Naxos recording company, and together they have released a recording of all symphonic works by Elisabetta Brusa (two CDs).