Biography

Francesco Fanna

Began to study the violin under the guidance of Antonio Carmignola, and then continued at the “Giuseppe Verdi” Conservatory of Music in Milan with Paolo Borciani, first violin of the famous Quartetto Italiano. He also studied Composition with Franco Donatoni, Niccolò Castiglioni, Danilo Lorenzini and Gianfranco Maselli. He studied Choral Music and Choral Conduction with Franco Monego and Lirical Theatre Conduction with Umberto Cattini. He obtained his Diploma in Orchestral Conduction under the guidance of Mario Gusella and later Michele Marvulli and Donato Renzetti. He attended several seminars and workshops in Nice, Assisi, Trieste and Rome, with teachers as Carlo Maria Giulini (“Accademia Chigiana” in Siena) and Leonard Bernstein (“Accademia di Santa Cecilia” in Rome).

He conducted several orchestras in Italy and abroad – France, Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain, Rumania, Czech Republic, Argentina, Mexico, Korea, Japan – among which the “Bari Symphonic Orchestra”, the Orchestras “I Pomeriggi Musicali”, “Angelicum” and “Milano Classica” in Milan, the “Haydn” Symphonic Orchestra in Bolzano and Trento, the Sanremo Symphonic Orchestra, the “Filarmonia Veneta” Orchestra, the “Orchestra Sinfonica Abruzzese”, the “Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana”, the “Orchestre Filarmonique de Nice”, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Ploiesti and the Symphonic Orchestra of Constanta (Rumania), the Orchestras “Accademia di San Rocco” in Venice, “Pian & Forte” in Milan, “I sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca”, “Virtuosi di Praga”, “Les solistes de Moscou-Montpellier”, the “Guido Cantelli” Orchestra in Milan, the “Accademia musicale of San Giorgio” Orchestra in Venice and the “Orchestre de Chambre de Genève”.

He debuted in Opera in 1993 in Munich conducting Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi and later conducting Operas from the Grand repertory (i.e. Nabucco, Lucia di Lammermoor,…) as well as more rare conductions (La Griselda by Antonio Vivaldi, Il Tigrane by Christoph Willibald Gluck and Niccolò Piccinni, and the farce Poche ma buone by Ferdinando Paër, the opera for children performance La Teresina by Roberto Hazon, L’arca di Noè by Benjamin Britten, the oratorio La morte d’Abele by Domenico Cimarosa, Il mondo della luna by Franz Joseph Haydn,…) ranging from the baroque composers to the contemporary ones.

He recorded for Czechoslovak Television and for the record companies Lupulus and Discover (with “Virtuosi di Praga”), Arkadia (the opera “La Griselda” by Antonio Vivaldi in first world recording with “Les solistes de Moscou-Montpellier”), Agorà (the first world recording of psalm Beatus vir, RV 795, by Antonio Vivaldi) and Stradivarius.

He has been Former Conductor and Artistic Director for the “Orchestra Filomusica del Cenacolo Musicale Ambrosiano” and Musical Consultant for Orchestra and Choir of the “Nuova Polifonica Ambrosiana” in Milan, with which he undertook tours in Great Britain, Korea and Japan.

Between 1989 and 1993 he organized a sequence of Chamber Concerts and also organized as Artistic Director a series on Symphonic Concerts – "Concerto di concerti" –, with the aim of enhancing the music of Italian composers belonging to the “historical nine hundred”.

During the years 1996 and 1997 he was Artistic Consultant for the recording company “Nuova Fonit Cetra” belonging to “Rai”, and from 1998 to 2002 he was Artistic Director of “I Concerti delle Terme di Sirmione”, on the Garda Lake.

In the season 2002-2003 he was Artistic Director of the “Guido Cantelli” Orchestra in Milan and from 2005 is Artistic Director of the “Compagnia per la musica sacra” in Milan.

From 1997 he is Former Director of the “Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi” within the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice.