Marcello Panni

Marcello, Panni
(b Rome, 24 Jan 1940). Italian conductor and composer. He studied at the Rome Conservatory (conducting with Ferrara, 1963; composition with Petrassi, 1964), and then studied conducting with Manuel Rosenthal at the Paris Conservatoire (1965–8).

In 1971 he founded the Ensemble Teatromusica, with whom he performed his musical pantomime, Klangfarbenspiel, at the Piccola Scala, Milan (1972), and the ‘azione scenica’ La partenza dell’Argonauta at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. He has conducted rarely performed works, such as Pergolesi's Il Flaminio (Naples, 1982), for which he also provided a new critical edition, and has given the European premières of works by Berio, Bussotti, Cage, Feldman, Glass and others. He has also appeared as a guest conductor at La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna Staatsoper, the Paris Opéra and elsewhere. Panni held the Milhaud Chair in Composition at Mills College, Oakland, California (1980–84), and in 1993 was appointed principal conductor of the Bonn Opera, becoming musical director in 1995. In 1994 he was appointed artistic director of the Pomeriggi Musicali in Milan. He has recorded Pergolesi's opera Adriano in Siria and oratorio La morte di San Giuseppe, Paisiello's Nina, pazza per amore, Handel's Giulio Cesare, Donizetti's La fille du régiment, Petrassi's Il Cordovano and Berio's Passaggio.