Giuseppe Grazioli

Conductor Giuseppe Grazioli has focused his efforts on preserving seldom-performed Italian repertoire through numerous recordings, while maintaining an extensive career directing both symphonic ensembles and operatic productions.

He completed studies in piano with Paolo Bordoni and composition with Niccolò Castiglioni before turning to the podium, where his mentors encompassed Leonard Bernstein, Peter Maag, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Leopold Hager, and Franco Ferrara. Grazioli has appeared with leading Italian orchestras such as the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, and he has led operatic performances in Rome, Bologna, Trieste, and Verona.

His first recording appeared in 1993, when he directed the Harmonia Ensemble in the album 1931, presenting music by Constant Lambert, Arnold Bax, and Vittorio Rieti. Two years afterward he conducted Nino Rota’s rarely staged opera La Visita Meravigliosa with the Orchestra e Coro Sociale di Rovigo for La Bottega Discantica; he has remained an advocate for Rota’s works ever since.

Grazioli maintains a broad command of contemporary scores, having led the Italian premieres of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass and Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio as well as the world premiere of Marco Tutino’s Vita with the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. In the United States he conducted Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at Washington Opera in 2001 and Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de perles with the same company in 2008–2009, and he has directed several productions at Yale University.

In 2019 he was named principal conductor of the Opéra de Saint-Étienne, where he continues to work regularly throughout France. His discography includes six volumes of Rota’s orchestral music on Decca with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, releases for Warner Music, and a 2023 recording of Licinio Refice’s opera Cecilia for Dynamic.