LANFRANCO MARCELLETTI, JR., Director of Orchestral Activities

One of Brazil's most internationally renowned artists, Lanfranco Marcelletti is rapidly gaining recognition for his brilliant musicality and compelling leadership both as an orchestral and operatic conductor. A protégé of renowned scholar/maestro Alberto Zedda, Mr. Marcelletti appears regularly at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, where he has led productions of Il Viaggio a Reims and Carlo Coccia's Arrighetto. He began his opera career at Glimmerglass Opera, and has also appeared with Opera Tampa, Teatro Real (Madrid), Commonwealth Opera (MA) and Teatro Calderón (Valladolid, Spain). He assisted another famed maestro, Anton Coppola, in the world premiere of Coppola's epic opera Sacco and Vanzetti. Mr. Marcelletti has also written a musical theater piece based on Mozart, in collaboration with actress Carmen Bermejo.

Equally known as an orchestral conductor, Mr. Marcelletti currently serves as Director of Orchestras at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) as well as Principal Conductor of the Franciscan Chamber Orchestra (Albany, NY). His guest conducting activities have taken him throughout North America, South America and Europe, and he has appeared with the Brazil Symphony Orchestra (Rio de Janeiro), the Chilean National Symphony (Santiago), the National Theater Orchestra (Brasilia), Xalapa Symphony Orchestra (Mexico), Orchestra del Teatro Communale (Bologna), the Galicia Symphony Orchestra (La Coruña) and the Eleazar de Carvalho Summer Arts Festival Orchestra (Fortaleza, Brazil).

Mr. Marcelletti began his musical studies in his hometown of Recife, Brazil at the Conservatório Pernambuco de Música, later studying piano at the Musik Akademie (Zürich), piano and composition at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst (Vienna), and eventually orchestral conducting at Yale University. Notable among his many awards are first prize in both the Conducting Competition of the Chilean Symphony Orchestra and the Giovani Solisti di Roma Competition, being named Debut Artist Conductor of the Year by the São Paulo Association of Critics of Art, and the Dean's Prize along with the Eleazar de Carvalho Prize awarded by Yale University. Mr. Marcelletti was also awarded a special citation for his work promoting music in his native Recife.