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Joseph RescignoPhoto credit:Richard Brodzeller Photography, Milwaukee, WI. |
Joseph Rescigno
Joseph Rescigno has conducted symphonies, concertos, operas, and oratorios for more than 50 companies on four continents. Since 1981, he has served as Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor of the Florentine Opera Company of Milwaukee (WI), where he has conducted some of the companys most challenging repertory. In his permanent and guest engagements, Joseph Rescigno has conducted symphonies and concertos from the baroque to the modern erasometimes conducting from the keyboard in works from the earlier erasand such masterworks of the choral literature as Beethovens Ninth Symphony and Verdis Requiem. In opera houses, Maestro Rescigno has conducted virtually all of the core Italian repertory, including romantic, verismo, and bel canto operas; the standard French and German repertory, including the works of Wagner and Richard Strauss; and contemporary works, including the Florentine Operas first world premiere, Don Daviss Río de Sangre, in 2010. As a guest artist, Maestro Rescigno has conducted the New York City Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, Hungarian State Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Seattle Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Vancouver Opera, Teatro Bellini, lOpéra de Marseille, and lOpéra de Montreal among others. The symphony orchestras he has conducted include the Montreal Symphony and the Milwaukee Symphony orchestras, both of which he has conducted in their regular subscription series as well as in opera productions. In addition, he won Quebecs Prix Opus for a program of all five Beethoven piano concertos with Anton Kuerti at the piano and the Metropolitan Orchestra of Greater Montreal. Maestro Rescignos discography includes four recordings for Analekta of Canada with the same Metropolitan Orchestra: Beethovens Eroica Symphony plus the overture and rarely performed arias from the incidental music to the play Egmont with soprano Karina Gauvin; Brahmss two piano concertos with Anton Kuerti; Mendelssohns two violin concertos with Angèle Dubeau; and soprano arias from Mozarts Marriage of Figaro plus Exsultate Jubilate with soprano Lyne Fortin. Also for Analekta, he recorded the highly regarded Verismo featuring Diana Soviero, with the orchestra of the Montreal Opera, a collection of arias from well-known and little-known operas of the verismo school. Having conducted the world and Japanese premieres, Maestro Rescigno recorded Minoru Mikis Joruri with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra for Toei Video Disk. Click here for audio. This native New Yorker comes from a long line of musicians on both sides of his family. He trained as a pianist and has been studying and performing music since childhood. His grandfather taught him sightsinging from about the age of two. His uncle was the prominent conductor Nicola Rescigno, a founder of both the Dallas and Chicago opera companies. Joseph Rescigno is a graduate of Fordham University (Phi Beta Kappa) and the Manhattan School of Music. Joseph Rescigno studied with composer Nicolas Flagello and other distinguished teachers in the United States and Europe, including privately at lAccademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He went on to serve the time-honored, opera-house apprenticeship in the European manner with such influential conductors as Laszlo Halasz (founder of the New York City Opera), Bruno Maderna, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Carlo Moresco (the first director of the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company), and his uncle. Powerful influences also included pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, conductors Herbert von Karajan and Erich Leinsdorf, and Roberto Benaglio, the legendary chorus master of La Scala. Each one personally taught him something unforgettable. Maestro Rescigno has further been privileged to collaborate with prominent musicians of three generations including instrumentalists Brigitte Engerer, Ida Haendel, Elmar Oliveira, and Pieter Wispelwey, and singers June Anderson, Angela Brown, Ghena Dimitrova, Giuseppe DiStefano, Plácido Domingo, Alfredo Kraus, Eva Marton, Johanna Meier, Erie Mills, Andrea Rost, Erika Sunnegårdh, Ruth Ann Swenson, Tatiana Troyanos, Ramón Vargas, and Deborah Voigt. A born teacher, Joseph Rescigno has always derived tremendous gratification out of working with young musicians in student orchestras and singers in master classes. He is a past faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music and currently serves as the Music Director of La Musica Lirica festival in Italy. Multi-lingual, he readily gives lively and informative talks before performances, illustrating themes on the piano when one is available. He is working on his first book, The View From The Pit: Where Theater Meets Music. Last update: August 2011 |
Concertatore is a rather old-fashioned name for a conductor in an opera house. Typically and colloquially, Italians refer to the person who leads an orchestra as il direttore d’orchestra. The person who not only leads the performance but works on the conception and realization of a piece with singers, stage directors, choreographers, and just about anyone else involved, however, was historically il direttore d’orchestra e maestro concertatore. This is not to slight a direttore, mind you. That person may come in half-way through the season, for example, and do a large number of performances in outstanding fashion. But the most gratifying part is being that concertatore—pulling together diverse forces and leading that concerted effort in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Joseph Rescigno
Rescigno is an Italianate spelling of a name that originated in Spain many generations ago. The “g” before an “n” in Italian (and in French) has an effect like the tilda in Spanish. So the “gn” combination sounds like the “ny” in canyon or the “ñ” in señor. The “sc“ in Italian sounds like “sh” in English. Accent the middle syllable, and you’re ready to go. Rolling your “r” is optional. The maestro adjusts his r’s depending on which language he is speaking.
So... it’s: reh SHEEN yo
The “or” near the end of Concertatore is where the accent falls and it sounds just like the word or in English. The first “c” is hard and the second “c” sounds like the “ch” in church.
So it’s: kon cher tah TO reh.
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