Artist · Conductor
Giovanni Acciai
Biography
Giovanni Acciai
Recognized unanimously as one of the greatest performers of the Renaissance and Baroque vocal repertoire, Giovanni Acciai is graduated in organ, composition and choir conducting and specialized in «Paleography and musical philology» at the University of Pavia.
In 1982 he was the winner of the competition for the realization of the critical edition of Gioacchino Rossini's «Messa di Gloria», organized by the «Rossini Foundation» of Pesaro and published by Casa Ricordi.
Former conductor of the «Corale universitaria di Torino» (from 1975 to 1983), of the «Coro del Teatro comunale» of Bologna (1981-1982) and of the «Coro da camera della RAI» of Rome (from 1989 and until the dissolution of the ensemble, occurred in 1994), he is currently the artistic and musical director of the «Solisti del Madrigale» and of the Collegium vocale et instrumentale «Nova Ars Cantandi», formed by professional singers and instrumentalists.
He is professor of Musical Palaeography at the «Giuseppe Verdi» Conservatory in Milan and the author of numerous musicological essays and important critical editions of vocal and instrumental music published by the major Italian and foreign publishing houses.
He has published several CD for record labels Antes, Stradivarius, Sarx, Tatcus, Archiv-Deutsches Grammophon, Naxos and Da Vinci.
He is regularly invited as an international jury member and president of the jury in most renewed choir competitions.
Giovanni Acciai is sought after as a lecturer at conferences of musicology and asked to hold masterclasses for choral conducting in Italy and abroad. For his high-ranking international artistic achievements in 1991 he was appointed honorary member of the «American Choral Directors Associations» (ACDA).
In December 2004 he was appointed active member and official representative for Italy of the «Choir Olympic Council», under the auspices of UNESCO.
In November 2015 he was part of the «Réseau Européen de Musique Ancienne» (R.E.M.A.), the European reference network for early music.
In 2022, together with Ivana Valotti, he founded the international festival «Musica Mirabilis» in Clusone (Bergamo), dedicated to Giovanni Legrenzi.
(www.giovanniacciai.it)