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Boccacci debuts with Ballet Cymru at the Wales Millennium Centre’s Dance House
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NEWS ·
Boccacci joins the Yale Philharmonia as Assistant Conductor
Boccacci returns as assistant at the Immling Festival in Germany for the productions of Aida and The Threepenny Opera
Colombian-Italian conductor Stefano Boccacci is a versatile opera, ballet, choral and contemporary music conductor. He has worked with professional orchestras and opera productions in both Europe, USA and Latin America. He has been appointed as assistant conductor of the Yale Philharmonia for the 2023/24 season working with its principal conductor, Peter Oundjian. Recent commitments include working as assistant conductor at the Immling Festival in Germany (2023) and the Buxton International Festival in the UK. In 2022 he debuted with the French contemporary music group Ensemble Multilatérale in Nîmes, with whom he continues collaborating , assisting its musical director, conductor Léo Warynski.
In 2021 he made his debut with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra and in 2019 with the Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera; that same year Mark Wigglesworth invited Boccacci to assist him with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, working on Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. Earlier that year he worked as assistant conductor to Maxime Tortelier and the North Devon Sinfonia at the first edition of their festival. In 2018, he won the Bob Harding Bursary for Young Conductors, becoming the assistant conductor of the Havant Symphony Orchestra for the 2018/19 season.
Over the years, he has assisted opera productions in the UK, Austria, Brazil and Colombia. He has worked with conductors such as Catherine Larsen-Maguire, Toby Purser and David Jones. His repertoire includes La Bohème, Suor Angelica, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Così fan tutte, Carmen, Albert Herring, Alcina, among others. He has experience working as a vocal and language coach in Italian, French, German, English and Spanish. In November 2020 he conducted a full production of Dido and Aeneas at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
A versatile musician, Boccacci has been the conductor and creative producer of hybrid productions with the Welsh Ballet and the Contemporary Dance Programme of the University of South Wales, developing cross-discipline projects with orchestra, choir, dancers, actors, stage and costume design. He has created several projects and ensembles, including the award-winning Orquesta de Cámara Tutta Forza (2016) and he was the conductor of the Nashville Big Band during 2015, recording for Tigo Music that same year.
Boccacci has trained with Jac van Steen, Carlo Rizzi, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, John Fisher, Patrick Fournillier, Johannes Wildner and Toby Purser. He studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama under the mentorship of David Jones, and was awarded the Gemma Sharp Memorial Award for giving the greatest contribution to the institution during his studies.
He is thoroughly invested in education and social projects, encouraging audience participation and educational content. He is a teacher at the University of Oxford and a visiting artist at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. He is a current student of Theodor Guschlbauer and Jean-Philippe Wurtz at the University of Strasbourg, producing 20th and 21st centuries operas. Following his interest in access to opera he became the Programming and Project supervisor of the National Student Opera Society UK in 2020, developing a free online platform of events for students and young artists with leading figures of the opera world. In 2018, alongside animateur/educator Tom Redmond and the RWCMD Symphony Orchestra, he toured around Wales performing for 3000 children. He has developed workshops for schools as well as family concerts in Colombia, England and Wales, creating activities for children and approaching classical music through storytelling, dance and singing.
Photo credit: Oliver Edwards & Catalina Aristizábal.