Conductor
Francesco
Bossaglia
Italian conductor Francesco Bossaglia (b. 1980) brings the same passion and authority to the symphony hall, the opera house, and the music of living composers.
Photo: © LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura
Biography
Italian conductor Francesco Bossaglia (b. 1980) belongs to a rare kind of musician: one who stands inside Haydn, Mahler and Bartók with passion and authority and, in the same breath, gives voice to the composers of his own time. For him the podium is an act of curation — guarding the repertoire and championing living music are a single vocation.
His path to conducting was quite unique and truly international. He trained as a horn player — with top honours in Modena, then at the Chicago College of Performing Arts — and it was in Chicago, following the CSO's rehearsals under Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez, that he was drawn to the podium. He went on to take a Master's in conducting at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, and studied at the Gstaad Conducting Academy with Neeme Järvi and Gennady Rozhdestvensky, and with Peter Eötvös in numerous masterclasses and courses.
He has conducted the Sinfonieorchester Basel, Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana and Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, and since 2012 has had a close, recurring relationship with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano. He served as assistant to Ivan Fischer at the Budapest Festival Orchestra, at home and on tour, and to Peter Rundel at the Accademia della Scala, and is a founding member of the conductor-less ensemble Spira mirabilis.
His advocacy of new music is central. He has worked closely with composers including Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Helmut Lachenmann, Heiner Goebbels, John Luther Adams, Morton Subotnick and Ivan Fedele, giving premieres at the Biennale di Venezia, Klangspuren Schwaz and Transart Bolzano, and ranging into opera, dance and multimedia. In 2019 he led Ensemble Resonanz at the Berlin Philharmonie and Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie.
At a glance
- Training
- French horn, top honours, Modena; Chicago College of Performing Arts; Master's in Conducting, Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana, Lugano; Gstaad Conducting Academy, with Neeme Järvi and Gennady Rozhdestvensky; masterclasses and courses with Peter Eötvös
- Worked under
- Followed Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez at the Chicago Symphony; assistant to Ivan Fischer, Budapest Festival Orchestra; assistant to Peter Rundel, Accademia della Scala
- Orchestras
- Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano (frequent guest since 2012), Sinfonieorchester Basel, Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, Ensemble Resonanz
- Ensemble
- Spira mirabilis — founding member, conductor-less ensemble, est. 2007
- Halls & festivals
- Berlin Philharmonie and Hamburg Elbphilharmonie (Ensemble Resonanz, 2019); Biennale di Venezia; Klangspuren Schwaz; Transart Bolzano; Festival dei Due Mondi, Spoleto
- Now
- Head of Orchestras and Ensembles and chamber-music teacher, Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana, Lugano
Repertoire
Symphonic
Beethoven, Mahler, Ravel, Bartók, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Schönberg, Berg, Ligeti.
Contemporary & new music
Boulez, Berio, Stockhausen, Xenakis, John Adams, Steve Reich — plus world premieres including works by Ciceri, Montalbetti, Stevanovic, Gabriele Manca (Dialoghi con il respiro), Giovanni Bonato (Where the whole universe dwells) and Matteo Franceschini / Tovel (Songbook, Swiss premiere), alongside close collaborations with Birtwistle, Lachenmann, Goebbels, John Luther Adams, Subotnick and Fedele.
Opera & music theatre
Britten (The Turn of the Screw, The Rape of Lucretia), Montalbetti (Haye: le parole, la notte), Goebbels, Sciarrino.
Schedule
Upcoming
- Sala Teatro LAC, Lugano Ensemble 900, Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana — Matteo Franceschini / Tovel, Songbook (Swiss premiere)
Recent
- Aula Magna, Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana, Lugano Ensemble del Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana — Casella, Pupazzetti · Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Guitar Concerto No. 1 (Davide Dipilato, guitar) · Poulenc, Aubade (Elia Frittelli, piano)
- Sala Puccini, Conservatorio G. Verdi, Milano MDI Ensemble — Premio Nazionale delle Arti, Composition category, final concert
Press
From the composer
I was really moved by the musicality and precision you brought to The Key to Songs. I had never heard a performance of it that matched the recording and was expecting it would never come to life in live performance the way it does on the recording. You and your group did it!
On the podium, Francesco Bossaglia leading the Icarus Ensemble gave an interpretation excellent in its clarity and precision, bringing out the timbral dimension so particular to Ravel's style.
The Icarus Ensemble plays superbly and Francesco Bossaglia conducts superbly — without overdoing the ghost-story atmospherics, and instead with a sharp, decisive, intensely dramatic line.
Common to both one-act operas, the excellent conducting of Francesco Bossaglia, whose baton clearly brought out the different styles of the two composers, along with an excellent rapport between pit and stage.
Francesco Bossaglia conducted the Icarus Ensemble, capturing all the dramatic and sensual charge and the evocative force of a score written with extreme economy of means, like a precision mechanism.
At the premiere, though, it was someone else who drew the loudest applause: the conductor Francesco Bossaglia, who with his Ensemble 21 gave an impeccable performance.
The audience that filled the small Teatro Ariosto responded to this Turn of the Screw with real enthusiasm, as though it were a repertory staple — thanks to the excellent musical reading by Francesco Bossaglia at the head of the Icarus Ensemble.
Media
Morton Subotnick, The Key to Songs · Steve Reich, City Life
Ensemble 900, Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana — Maggio Elettrico Festival, Tempo Reale, Florence, May 2017
