Alessandro De Marchi

Internationally acclaimed for his historically informed readings of Baroque operas and oratorios, conductor and harpsichordist Alessandro De Marchi extends the same principles to Classical repertoire, Romantic bel canto opera, and later works. From 1997 to 2018 he directed the period-instrument orchestra Academia Montis Regalis, and between 2009 and 2023 he served as artistic director of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music. In 2024 he appeared as guest conductor with the youth historical orchestra THERESIA for a recording of Domenico Cimarosa’s Le Astuzie Femminili.

Born in Rome in 1962, De Marchi first studied composition and organ at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia before continuing at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where Jesper Christensen guided his training in harpsichord, chamber music, and continuo and fostered his engagement with early music. Beginning in 1989 he worked as harpsichordist and assistant to René Jacobs; his initial assignment was the Antonio Cesti opera Orontea, which he later conducted on a European tour. His first recording, made in 1990 with Il Teatro Armonico, presented Bernardo Pasquini’s Caino e Abele and was reissued in 2012. Daniel Barenboim subsequently engaged him as assistant at the Deutsche Staatsoper in Berlin and later invited him back as guest conductor, a relationship that has continued. At the Salzburg Festival he served as assistant and harpsichordist for productions that included Monteverdi’s Orfeo under Jacobs and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion under Claudio Abbado.

De Marchi has also appeared with the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Wiener Symphoniker, and the Staatskapelle Berlin. His operatic engagements have taken him across Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Japan. Assuming leadership of Academia Montis Regalis in 1997, he directed the ensemble in its contribution to the Opus111 “Vivaldi Edition,” beginning with Juditha triumphans in 2001. Further recordings with the orchestra encompassed additional volumes of that series as well as works by Handel, Haydn, and Alessandro Stradella.

Succeeding Jacobs in 2009 as artistic director of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, De Marchi established Academia Montis Regalis as its resident orchestra in 2010. One of the productions mounted there, Telemann’s Flavius Bertaridus, was recorded and released in 2012. He remained with Academia Montis Regalis until 2018, after which he founded the Innsbruck Festival Weeks Orchestra; in 2022 that ensemble recorded Pasquini’s L’Idalma, drawn from the previous year’s festival. De Marchi concluded his tenure at the Innsbruck Festival in 2023, and the following year he led THERESIA in the CPO release Domenico Cimarosa: Le Astuzie Femminili.