Riccardo Minasi
was born in Rome in 1978. He has performed both as soloist as well as concertmaster with Le Concert des Nations of Jordi Savall, Accademia Bizantina, Concerto Italiano, Il Giardino Armonico, Al Ayre Español, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di S.Cecilia and Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid. He has also worked with the Concerto Vocale of René Jacobs, Ensemble 415, Luca Pianca, Viktoria Mullova, Albrecht Mayer, Christophe Coin and Reinhard Goebel. As a conductor he directed the Orchestra and Choir of the Opéra National de Lyon, Kammerakademie of Potsdam, Zürich Kammerorchester, Balthasar Neumann Ensemble, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, L'Arpa Festante, Recreation-Grosses Orchester of Graz, Attersee-Akademie Orchestra, ensemble Resonanz, European Union Baroque Orchestra (EUBO), Il Complesso Barocco, Holland Baroque Society and the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, of which he was the associate conductor between 2008 and 2011 . Invited by Kent Nagano he performed as concertmaster at the Belcanto Festival in Knowlton and collaborated as historical advisor for the Montrèal Symphony Orchestra in Canada. In 2010 he worked as assistant conductor, concertmaster, curator and editor of the critical edition of the opera Norma by Vincenzo Bellini with Cecilia Bartoli and Thomas Hengelbrock in Dortmund. In collaboration with Maurizio Biondi he will publish the critical edition of Norma for Baerenreiter in 2016. Since its foundation in 2012 until 2015 he was the principal conductor of the ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro. From 2004 to 2010 he was professor of chamber music at the Conservatorio V. Bellini of Palermo, he has also given violin and orchestra master-classes, and lectures in historical practice at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge (USA), at the Sibelius Academy of Helsinki, at the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover, at the Conservatory of Antwerpen, at the Chinese Culture University of Taipei (Taiwan), at the Conservatory of Sydney (Australia), the Kùks Residence in the Czech Republic, at the Zürich Opera House, at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole and as the italian representative of the jury in 2009, at the auditions for the European Union Baroque Orchestra (EUBO). His recording of Biber’s Rosenkranz Sonaten published by Arts was a finalist at the Midem Classical Award in Cannes as album of the year in 2009. This season he has conducted Il Matrimonio segreto at the Zürich Opernhaus, Carmen at the Opéra National de Lyon, Rinaldo at the Theater an der Wien and on tour with Il Pomo d’Oro for Catone in Utica by Vinci, Tamerlano, Serse and Partenope by Händel. The recording “Stella di Napoli” with Joyce DiDonato and the chorus and orchestra of the Lyon Opera was nominated for a Grammy Award as “best classical vocal album”, received a “Diapason D’or of the Year” and the “BBC Music Magazine Award 2015.” Next season he will conduct at the Zürich Opera the ballet “Der Sandmann” (music by Schumann and Schnittke), with the Hamburgische Staatsoper Gluck’s Iphigènie en Tauride, with the orchestra La Scintilla (Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven), with the London Chamber Orchestra (Cherubini, Beethoven, Mendelssohn), with ensemble Resonanz at the Schleswig Holstein festival (Haydn) and with Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.