Bio

Gabriele Ferro completed his music studies, piano and composition, graduating at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome in 1960.

He carried on his studies under the accomplished and competent guidance of his teacher Franco Ferrara, by whom he was very much loved, following his exclusive lectures held at the Dutch Radio in Hilversum.

Since an early age he conducted the RAI Scarlatti Orchestra in Naples, from 1965 till it was dissolved.

In 1970 Gabriele Ferro was selected among young orchestra conductors and obtained the position available at RAI. Since then he has collaborated with the company orchestras, as well as the Santa Cecilia Academy’s and La Scala’s in Milan for symphonic concerts.

For six years, from 1974 to 1980, he was invited by Claudio Abbado at the Teatro Alla Scala and by Radio France to conduct the Orchestre National de France in a series of four concerts per year (1974-1982) at the Salle Pleyel Champs Elysees in Paris.

He achieved a huge international success conducting the Wiener Symphoniker, the Bamberg Symphoniker, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra WDR, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig and the Staatskapelle in Dresden.

For many years he collaborated also with the Orchestre National de France.

Ferro became Permanent Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana (1979-1997) and he brought it five times to Venice Biennale and to the Teatro Alla Scala with a Berio’s world premiere.

He founded Bari Symphony Orchestra in 1967.

Principal Conductor of RAI Orchestra in Rome (1987-1991)

Generalmusikdirektor of the Staatstheater in Stuttgart (1991-1997), Leone d’oro prize in Venice

Music Director of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples (1999-2004)

Principal Conductor of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo (2001-2006)

Music Director of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo (2014-2019), now honorary life director

His repertoire ranges from classical to contemporary music, and within the latter, he conducted some world premiere works of Berio, Clementi, Maderna, Stockhausen, Ligeti, Nono, Rihm, Battistelli, Betta etc…

He devoted himself to melodrama both in Europe and in the United States, working on a repertoire that goes from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth century and collaborating intensively with many theatres, e.g. La Fenice in Venice, La Scala in Milan, the Opera in Rome, the Comunale in Florence, the Bastille and the Chatelet in Paris, the Muziektheater in Amsterdam, the Grand Theatre in Geneva, the Bayerische Staatoper in Munich, the Opera in Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera, the Opera in Tel Aviv, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Real in Madrid, the Covent Garden Royal Opera House in London, including also a long tour in Japan with Mozart’s  Così Fan Tutte.

In 2003, after the highly successful performance of Strauss’s Elektra in Naples, he was awarded the Abbiati prize.

He was guest at the major international festivals, such as the Wiener Festwochen, Schwetzingen Festival, Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival, Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Coruna Mozart Festival, Ferrara Musica and Venice Biennale.

He conducted new productions of La Cenerentola in Los Angeles, Cherubini’s Anacreòn in Venice, Macbeth in Tel Aviv, Schumann’s Genevieve in Vienna, L’elisir d’amore in Amsterdam and the original version of Cherubini’s Medea at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin.

Invited by Piero Farulli, Ferro taught orchestra conduction at the School of Music in Fiesole and dedicated himself with great passion to training young musicians.

In Geneva he celebrated the Helvetic Confederation 700th anniversary conducting Guillaume Tell with Chris Merritt.

The magazine Openrwelt awarded him the prestigious prize “Beste Auffùhrung 2012” for Bellini’s La sonnambula which he conducted in Stuttgart in April 2012.

He returned to the Teatro San Carlo in Naples where he opened the season with Rossini’s Semiramide directed by Luca Ronconi in Autumn 2011 and Bizet’s Les Pècheurs de perles in October 2012. Then he was on the podium again with Strauss’s Salome to open the Symphonic Season 2013/2014.

In 2015 in Stuttgart, he conducted Jommelli’s Il vologeso and also edited the instrumental version. The opera was selected by Opernwelt as the most interesting one of the German 2015 playbills.

In March 2016 his performance of Guillaume Tell at the Staatsoper in Hamburg was highly successful and he conducted it again to open the season of the Teatro Massimo in 2018.

In November 2016 he opened the season of Teatro San Carlo in Naples with Rossini’s Otello and with Verdi’s Macbeth at Teatro Massimo in Palermo, directed by Emma Dante, whom he had already worked with in 2014 for the opening of Teatro Massimo conducting Feuersnot.

In 2019 he conducted the new production of Schumann’s Il Paradiso e la Peri, with the dramaturgy by Peter Kehr, at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

In 2020 he was appointed honorary conductor for life of the Teatro Massimo.

Gabriele Ferro has recorded for Sony, Emi, Erato, Unitel Classica and Deutche Grammophon.

He is an active academician at the Santa Cecilia in Rome.