Luciano Acocella

Luciano Acocella studied piano, composition and conducting at the Conservatory of the Santa Cecilia in Rome, and completed his studies in conducting at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. He has also attended courses at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Accademia Musicale Chigiana and at Kirill Kondrashin’s masterclass in Hilversum.

After winning at the 1996 Prokofiev Conducting Competition and the Mitropoulos Competition for Conductors, he began conducting concerts and opera in Italy, the Netherlands, France, China, Denmark, Japan, Korea, Russia, Poland and Romania.

In 2000, he made his début at the Royal Operaakademiet in Copenhagen conducting a production of Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. This was followed by a production of Madama Butterfly with Associazione Lirica e Concertistica Italiana and Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur in the Circuito Lirico Lombardo. It was at this point that Acocella caught the attention of Daniele Gatti who invited him to be his assistant at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna as well as on productions at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Granada and Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In 2002 at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, he conducted Manon Lescaut followed by Il barbiere di Sivigliawhen the theatre toured Japan. In the summer of 2004, he toured with the theatre to Seoul where he conducted a production of Rigoletto with Leo Nucci and Sumi Jo, coming back again to Seoul in 2006 to conduct Tosca with Bruson and Daniela Dessì. With other regional Italian theatres he has conducted Il barbiere di Siviglia, Pagliacci, L’Arlesiana and Mascagni’s Nerone.

He performs regularly at the Martina Franca Festival where he has conducted I Capuleti e i Montecchi with his wife the soprano Patrizia Ciofi in the edition from La Scala of 1830-31. At the festival he has also performed rare works such as Paisiello’s Mass for the Coronation of Napolean, Gomes’ La messa de nostra Senora de Conseicao and Mercadante’s Ultime Sette Parole di Nostro Signore Sulla Croce.

He continued his collaboration with the St Petersburg Philharmonic where in 2005 he conducted Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle. Highlights of other past engagements include a tour of Japan where he conducted Patrizia Ciofi and Rolando Villazon in concerts with the Tokyo Philharmonic, concerts with Patrizia Ciofi, gala concert with Rolando Villazon, the new production of Lucia di Lammermoor with Opera de Marseille, concerts of Weill, Korngold, Stravinsky and Barber with the Thessaloniki Symphony Orchestra, La Traviata with the New Russian Philharmonic at the Tchaikowsky Hall in Moscow.

Other orchestras with whom he has conducted include the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Miami Festival Orchestra,  Taipei Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre Lyrique de Région Avignon-Provence, the Częstochowa Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova, l’ Orchestra Toscanini of Parma, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, l’Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana and l’Orchestra dei Pomeriggi Musicali di Milano.

Future engagements include Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, La bohème with Opera d’Avignon, Maria Stuarda with Royal Opera of Wallonia, I Capuleti e i Montecchi in Moscow, Concerts with Orchestra della Magna Grecia, I puritani with the Coruna Festival in Spain, Don Giovanni and Lakmé with Opéra de Rouen, Manon Lescaut with Opéra de Marseille, I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Royal Opera of Wallonia and a new production of Il viaggio a Reims which will tour to Reims, Vichy, Avignon, Massy, Dijon, Tours, Metz, Nancy, Toulon, Nice, Toulouse, Marseille, Bordeaux, Budapest and Szeged.

Luciano Acocella’s recordings include I Capuleti e i Montecchi on DVD/CD for Dynamic Records and he is due to record a CD of Puccini’s arias with soprano Melanie Diener and the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.