About Dante

Dante Anzolini has conducted with great success in Europe, North and South America. His broad repertoire encompasses most major works from the mainstream and traditional symphonic and operatic repertoire as well as 20th and 21st century works. He is a strong advocate of new music and young composers, and has conducted numerous world-premieres of operatic and symphonic works. He is currently  principal guest Conductor of the Landestheater in Linz, Austria.

Dante Anzolini’s Metropolitan Opera debut conducting Philip Glass’ opera “Satyagraha” in April 2008 was an outstanding success with significant critical praise: “The impressive young conductor Dante Anzolini” (The New York Times, Anthony Tommasini) made a “memorable” (Washington Post, Anne Midgette) and “splendid” (New York Post, Clive Barnes) debut at the Metropolitan Opera. “The orchestra under Dante Anzolini makes the chugging ostinatos and shimmering arpeggios flirt with poetry” (Financial Times, Martin Bernheimer).

Over 25,000 people attended sold out performances. He has recently made his debut in Muenchen with the Muenchener Symphoniker, and in the Sala Sao Pablo in Brazil, with the Orchestra Sinfonica do Estado de Sao Pablo, both with great success of public. The latter appearence included a world premiere of the Second Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra by great Brazilian composer Marlos Nobre. Among other recent prizes, Dante Anzolini was named “Best Conductor of the year 2006″ by the Critics Association of Argentina. As a composer, he wrote many piano solo, orchestral, and chamber pieces.

He is presently working on both his First Symphony and “Quaderno per Daniel”, a collection of piano preludes for young players. Upcoming pieces include several Piano Etudes, and sonatas for solo instruments. His solo piano arrangement of Arnold Schoenberg’s Variations for Orchestra op. 31, published by Belmont and distributed worldwide by Universal Edition, is the first ever written piano version of the monumental orchestral piece. His past engagements have included a debut with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at Vienna’s Musikverein, in September 2007, opera and ballet performances (Verdi’s Othelo and Delibes’ Coppelia) at the Linz Theater in Austria, and five concerts per season with the Teatro Argentino Orchestra, with programs including many South American and world premieres, as well as performances of “La Traviata” and “Il Trovatore” at the same theater in Argentina.

His commitment to new music shows in the first call for new compositions organized by the Teatro Argentino in its entire history (2007). As a result, every concert program has included at least one world premiere. In May 2006, he led the Brucknerorchester of Linz in tour to Dornbirn (Austria) and Stuttgart, Koeln and Duesseldorf (Germany) in a program including Bruckner IV Symphony (1876) and the European premiere of Philip Glass’ symphony No. 8. He conducted the Matav Orchestra of Budapest, Hungary, in a program of film music (Bernstein, Gershwin and Rota). In September 2005 he led the MIAGI Ensemble of South Africa, in Johannesburg and Cape Town, in a program that featured world music singer Miriam Makeba.

History

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Beginnings

Italian, born in Berisso, small working class town in South America, the son of late Lorenzo D Anzolini and Lucila Wawzyniak de Anzolini, Dante Anzolini acknowledges the strong influence of his parents in both his ethical wiew, as well as his artistic goals. He started playing piano at age 5 and composing at 11. He studied oboe, percussion, violin and viola and played both string instruments in classical and tango orchestras. He graduated as Piano Professor from the G. Gilardi Conservatory of La Plata, where he also pursued composition studies.
80´s

His debut

At the beginning of his musical career, he also studied Mathematics at the La Plata University. He made his debut as both pianist and composer at age 15. As a pianist and harpsichordist he played more than 200 solo and chamber music concerts in Europe, South and North America. His debut as a conductor was at age 18 performing his own music for orchestra to Rabelais’ Pichrocole. Early in his career, in addition to teaching piano and conducting several choirs, he worked as vocal coach, rehearsal pianist and chorus conductor at the Teatro Argentino. Other interests include readings in world-literature, history, psychology, sociology, languages and science.
1990

Associate Conductor

As Associate Conductor of the Yale Contemporary Ensemble (1990), he worked closely with the late Jacob Druckman. He also participated in master classes with Lorin Maazel, Erich Leinsdorf, Kurt Sänderling, Seiji Ozawa and Dennis Russell Davies. In Argentina, he began his conducting studies with Mariano Drago Sijanec. Mr. Anzolini has earned many prizes, honors and awards. While studying at Yale, he received the Harriet Gibbs Fox Memorial Prize (1988), the Charles Ives Scholarship (1988), the Irving S. Gilmore Fellowship (1989), the Horatio Parker Memorial Prize (1989), and the Dean’s Prize (1990), awarded to “the most outstanding student in the graduating class.”
1992

Music Director

In 1992 he received the “C. D. Jackson Conducting Award ” at the Tanglewood Summer Festival where he studied under Dennis Russell Davies and conducted in both the Contemporary Music Week and the Chamber Music Series. In 2000 he was awarded the title of “Illustrious Citizen” of Berisso, Argentina. He has devoted a very substantial part of his career to music education, either as a teacher or an orchestral conductor. He was named Music Director of the Itu Festival in São Pablo, Brazil, upon the passing of his teacher and mentor Eleazar de Carvalho. There he taught conducting, and conducted the Festival and chamber orchestras (1996-1998). He has been Music Director of the MIT Symphony Orchestra (1998-2006), where he also taught conducting and founded the MIT Chamber Orchestra.
1994

Germany

His experience as an opera conductor includes many performances in Bonn, Germany, where in 1993 he was appointed Solorepetitor und Dirigent of the Bonn Opera. In 1994, he made his debut at the Bonn Opera in a production of Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci staged by Gian-Carlo Del Monaco. Other productions with the Bonn Opera included: Puccini’s La fanciulla del West and Tosca, Offenbach’s Les Contes de Hoffmann; Gomes’ Il Guarany. Mr. Anzolini studied conducting with Eleazar de Carvalho at the Yale University School of Music, where he received both a Master of Musical Arts (1990) and a Doctorate in Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting (1997).
1995

Klaipeda and Bern

In 1995 he conducted with great success a new production of La Traviatain Klaipeda, Lithuania, made his debut in Bern, Switzerland with Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and became Kapellmeister of the Stadttheater Bern, where he conducted Le Nozze di Figaro, Madama Butterfly, Der Zigeunerbaron, as well as a ballet with music from Stravinsky’s Firebird, Bartok’s Divertimento and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 3. At the Stadttheater he also conducted with great acclaim ballets with music of Donizetti, Pergolesi, Stravinsky and a concert with the Berner Symphoniker.
1999

Brussels and Washington D.C.

In 1999 he conducted the second world performance of the Choral Symphony No. 5 at the Flanders Festival in Brussels, Belgium, and in 2000 participated in a recording project of the Requiem with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Anzolini was also engaged by the Choral Arts Society of Washington D.C. to conduct a performance of the Choral Symphony at the Kennedy Center in November 2001.
2001

MIT

His legacy at MIT is comprised of the first European Tours of the Orchestra in its history (2001, 2003), and praised performances of the Mahler Symphonies, Stravinsky Ballets, and the 4th Symphony of Ives, among other pieces. He was named Director of the Orchestral Program at the New England Conservatory (2002), conducting teacher at the Bang on a Can Festival (2004).
2002

Strasbourg, Palermo and New York

In 2002 Mr. Anzolini made his French debut in the Opera du Rhin in Strasbourg. That same year Anzolini conducted an acclaimed production of Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Italy, featuring Ute Lemper and chreographed by Mischa Van Hoecke. Anzolini’s Carnegie Hall debut in March 2001, with the American Composers Orchestra, featured two world premieres by Tania León and Jin Hi Kim, the New York premiere of Lukas Foss, Piano Concerto for the Left Hand with Leon Fleisher, and Schoenberg’s Variations for Orchestra.
2005

Jacksonville, Sweden and Austria

In March 2005, he was among the 8 conductors selected from a pool of over 220 participants by the American Symphony Orchestra League (ASOL) for the National Conductors Preview in Jacksonville, Florida. This honor was awarded by the ASOL for his “talent, accomplishments, and qualifications”, as stated in the event. He has led the Bruckner Orchester Linz to a great acclaim in a tour in Sweden and Austria.