Alvise
Casellati

Alvise Casellati is the Founder and Music Director of Opera Italiana is in the Air, created in 2017 with the mission of making the beauty of Italian opera accessible to everyone and enjoyable for all, to inspire and connect new and diverse audiences and artists while working on very important projects of social responsibility with the world’s leading cancer research centers. <<cut>>

His debut in Italy in 2011 was at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice where he conducted the Orchestra and Choir for the 150th Anniversary Concert of the Unity of Italy.  As Resident Conductor of the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa in 2014, he made his opera debut with Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia and then Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore.  As Director of the Ensemble Opera Studio (EOS) at the Carlo Felice Theater, he was instrumental in selecting talented voices to become part of the Theater Season.

Well versed in both opera and symphonic repertoire, he has been working with the most important Theaters and Music Festivals.  Recently at the Spoleto Two Worlds Festival with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia at the Duomo of Spoleto in a rarely performed repertoire of Holst, Kantscheli and Bernstein. Recent performances include the Opera Italiana is in the Air concerts in Piazza di Siena in Rome and in Central Park, New York, where Project Rebirth -- honoring the 100^th Anniversary of Tenor Caruso -- was the first post pandemic opera concert in New York City.  He recently recorded the project “Da Ponte & Friends” at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza produced by Sky Italia with Genoa’s Carlo Felice Theater.

In the last few years, he has been invited to participate in many Festivals: Arena di Verona, Ravello, Un’Estate da Re’ Reggia di Caserta, Ljubljana, Teatro Greco Taormina, Cartagena Festival Internacional de Música, Villa Bellini Catania, Nervi International Music Festival, Gabala International Music Festival, La Versiliana, Emilia Romagna (with Italian debut of actor John Malkovich), Viva Musica! Slovakia, Valle d'Itria, MittelFest Friuli, Baltic Music Seasons Latvia etc..

He collaborated with important theaters/orchestras internationally: Teatro La Fenice Venice, Mariinsky Theater St. Petersburg, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Rome, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Arena di Verona, Teatro San Carlo Naples, Carlo Felice Theater Genoa, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra at Zaryadye Hall Moscow, Xi’An Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic Shanghai Symphony Hall, Verdi Theater Trieste, Petruzzelli Theater Bari, Lirico Theater Cagliari, Teatro Bellini Catania, Lisinky Hall Zagreb, Fondazione Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, I Pomeriggi Musicali Milan, Haydn Orchestra Trento and Bolzano, Maribor National Symphony Orchestra, New York Chamber Virtuosi, Azerbaijan State Symphony Orchestra, Kiev Virtuosi Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia, Orchestra of Padova & Veneto, Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana, Orchestra Sinfonica Abruzzese, I Solisti Aquilani, Orchestra Sinfonica della Provincia di Bari, Sanremo Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Salernitana, Teatro Rendano Orchestra, Turin Orchestra Filarmonica, I Virtuosi Italiani (Verona), Benevento Orchestra Filarmonica etc.

After his diploma as Maestro of Violin with Guido Furini at the Conservatory of Music C. Pollini in Padova, his native city, he specialized with Felice Cusano and Taras Gabora. Further, he received a Juris Doctor Degree from the University of Padova in 1998 and a master’s degree in copyright from Columbia Law School New York in 2001.

Drawn to orchestral conducting by Leopold Hager at the Vienna Musikhochschule, he commenced his studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York in 2007 and then was mentored by Piero Bellugi, of whom he became Assistant to his Orchestral Conducting Masterclass in New York in June 2010. He was also Assistant Conductor to Gustav Kuhn in the 2012/13 Season at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl (Austria).

He was Founder of the Venetian Community of New York as well as Managing Director of the Foundation for Italian Art and Culture in New York.