The Reno Phil is proud to welcome Guest Conductor Alvise Casellati for Classix Five: Italian Festival. His appearance is exclusively sponsored by The Edwin L. Wiegand Trust.

Alvise was born in the northern Italian city of Padova (Padua in English), a short distance from Venice. He grew up playing music and entered the Cesare Pollini Conservatory in Padova at age 10. He studied violin and earned a diploma as Maestro in violin while also beginning studies in law.

Casellati received a Juris Doctor Degree from the University of Padova (School of Law). He set his sights on America and moved there to get a Master Degree at Columbia Law School. He studied copyright law while at Columbia and published an analysis of the European Union’s 2001 Information Society Directive, which sought to harmonize protection of copyright across the bloc.

Alvise was well on his way to a successful career in law, but after a health scare in 2007, he decided to focus his time on music. Drawn to orchestral conducting by Leopold Hager at the Vienna Musikhochschule, Casellati studied orchestral conducting at The Juilliard School of Music in New York at night while working as a lawyer for a day job.

Legendary conductor Piero Bellugi mentored him from 2009-2012. After the urging of Bellugi, Casellati conducted a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth at Lincoln Center. This performance led to an invite from the famed Teatro La Fenice opera house in Venice for Casellati to conduct the 150th Anniversary Concert of the Unity of Italy.

The path was now set for Alvise. He served as Assistant Conductor to Gustav Kuhn at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl (Austria) in 2012-13. He guest conducted several years at the Ravello Festival in Italy, in addition to the Spoleto Two Worlds Festival, Festival della Valle d’Itria, La Versiliana, the Venice Festival, Emilia Romagna Festival, Ljubljana Festival and MittelFest. He was the resident conductor of the Teatro Carlo Felice of Genova in 2014 and Director of the Ensemble Opera Studio at Teatro Carlo Felice.

Alvise has conducted in some of the most important theaters in Italy. He’s also collaborated with orchestras abroad, including Shanghai Philharmonic, New York Chamber Virtuosi, Orchestra Sinfonica of Mar del Plata (Argentina), and Voronezh Philharmonic (Russia).

Casellati is a founder and board member of La Fondazione NY and founder and President of the Venetian Community of New York. He also serves as the Managing Director of the Foundation for Italian Art and Culture in New York. Alvise is President & Music Director of Central Park Summer Concerts, an organization that produces “Opera Italiana,” an annual event in New York’s Central Park. The group’s aim is promoting knowledge and appreciation of Italian Opera, specifically targeting younger generations.

Info from Casellati’s Biography on Website and from Columbia Law School article

http://www.law.columbia.edu/news/2017/07/conductor-alvise-casellati-makes-his-mark