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‘Crazy masterpiece": Following the great success of the world premiere at the Schwetzingen SWR Festival, Tito Ceccherini conducts Lucia Ronchetti's opera Der Doppelgänger ("The Double") at the Lucerne Festival and in further performances until January.
Luca Francesconi, Daedalus
Tito Ceccherini, conductor
Remix Ensemble Casa da Música, Porto
Stephanie Wagner, flute
Vasco Mendonça, Concerto para violino (WP)
Philippe Manoury, Passacaille pour Tokyo
Jonathan Ayerst, piano
Carolin Widmann, violin
Lucia Ronchetti, Der Doppelgänger
Luzerner Sinfonieorchester
Toshio Hosokawa, Prayer
Daishin Kashimoto, violin
Toshio Hosokawa, composition
Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra
Francesco Filidei, Concerto per viola e orchestra
Claude Debussy, Nocturnes
Antoine Tamestit, viola
Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano
The translucent, but in its language very moving score was in good hands with Tito Ceccherini - he succeeded in rendering an airy but present soundscape, with sculpted climaxes. Opernglas, April 2022
Italian conductor Tito Ceccherini has made a name for himself especially with interpretations of works from the 20th Century as well as contemporary repertoire. He skilfully combines a focus on details with an understanding of the larger structure of a work - the Deutschlandfunk, for example, hailed his interpretation of Janáček's From the House of the Dead: "Tito Ceccherini crystallises (...) these disparate but tremendously colourful musical levels with aplomb and precision and does not lose sight of the overall architecture of the three-act work".
In the season 2024/25 Tito Ceccherini will conduct the new opera Der Doppelgänger by Lucia Ronchetti as part of the Lucerne Festival that he had premiered at the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele 2024 with the SWR Symphony Orchestra. Further highlights include the opening of the Biennale di Venezia with the Ensemble Modern and the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice performing works by Rebecca Saunders and Unsuk Chin, as well sa his debut with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra with a programme comprising works by Sibelius, Toshio Hosokawa, Toru Takemitsu as well as Debussy. He will also return to Milano Musica with the Orchestra di Milano, the Kammerorchester Basel, and the Remix Ensemble in Portugal.
In opera he celebrated a great success with Jenske Mijnssen’s new production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites at the Opera Zurich in spring 2022, following his first invitation at the house with Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre in 2019. He gave his house debuts at Theater Basel with Verdi’s La Traviata (direction: Benedikt von Peter) in 2022 as well as at the Staatsoper Stuttgart with Janáček’s Katja Kabanova in 2023 (direction: Jossi Wieler/Sergio Morabito). Since 2009 he has been working regularly at Teatro La Fenice in Venice where he conducted works such as Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (2020), Sciarrino’s Luci mie traditrici (2019), Battistelli’s Richard III (2018; direction: Robert Carsen, winner of the Franco Abbiati Music Critics Award), Krenek’s Cefalo e Procri (2017), and Sciarrino’s La porta della legge (2014). Other houses where he has been a reoccurring guest include Oper Frankfurt (Bellini I puritani 2018, Janáček Aus einem Totenhaus 2018, Strawinsky The Rake’s Progress 2017) as well as Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse (Mozart Entführung aus dem Serail 2017, Berlioz Béatrice et Bénédict 2016, Dallapiccola Il prigioniero / Bartók Blue Beard’s Castle 2015 – direction: Aurélien Bory). Following the sensational world premiere of Sciarrino’s Da gelo a gelo at the Schwetzinger Festspiele in 2006, he led numerous premiers and first performances including most recently Lucia Ronchetti’s Inferno at Oper Frankfurt in 2021.
Tito Ceccherini emerges also as conductor of international renowned symphony orchestras. As such he has worked with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Orquesta Estable del Teatro Colón, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, the Radio Orchestras of Stuttgart, Cologne, Frankfurt and Turin as well as many other leading orchestras in Italy, Spain and Portugal. Among his regular partners are the most important ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble intercontemporain, Collegium Novum Zurich or Ensemble Contrechamps.
Tito Ceccherini is founder of the Ensemble Risognanze, with whom he performs master works of the chamber music repertoire from Debussy to today documented on several CDs. His extensive discography includes recordings with Sony, Kairos, Col legno and Stradivarius, who have been awarded with the Diapason d’or, the Midem Classical Award and the Choc du Monde de la Musique among others.
Born in Milan he studied piano, composition and conducting in his home town at the Conservatorio "Giuseppe Verdi“ before he continued his education in St. Petersburg (Russia), Stuttgart and Karlsruhe (Germany).
2024/25 season
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J. Sibelius: Les Océanides
T. Hosokawa: Circulating Ocean
N. A. Rimskij-Korsakov: Sadko
C. Debussy: La mer
O. Messiaen: L'Ascension
P. Eötvös: Levitation
A. N. Skrjabin: Le Poème de l'Extase
F. Schreker: Nachtstück
C. Debussy: Trois Nocturnes
K. Szymanowski: Symphony No 3, ‘Song of the Night‘
S. Bussotti: Bergkristall
B. Bartók: The Wooden Prince Op. 13
C. Bizet: Symphony No 2, ‘Roma‘
O. Respighi: Fontane di Roma
O. Respighi: Pini di Roma
“With Tito Ceccherini, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra is conducted by a specialist for contemporary works. This is a plus, as he is able to weave individually significant musical fragments into a meaningful conglomerate.”
Luzerner Zeitung, Roman Kühne, 08/09/2024
“Under the direction of Tito Ceccherini, the SWR Symphony Orchestra plays the score, in which harp and celesta are very often exposed, with its renowned excellence in terms of avant-garde, but also with great passion.”
Opernwelt, Alexander Dick, Juni 2024
“Long applauded, the performance took place in Santa Croce, (…) entrusted to the confident hand and keen sensibility of Tito Ceccherini.”
Corriere della Sera, Enrico Girardi, October 2023
“Tito Ceccherini, (...) perfectly held the development of the dramatic action, demonstrating an excellent stylistic awareness, achieving refined colours and drawing out beautiful sonorities from the Staatsorchester Stuttgart.”
Mozart2006, 19/02/2023
"The translucent, but in its language very moving score was in good hands with Tito Ceccherini - he succeeded in rendering an airy but present soundscape, with sculpted climaxes."
Opernglas, Yeri Han, April 2022
"The music rather nestles under the text, characterising and commenting - almost like a melodrama. In the Zurich production, this can be experienced particularly strongly because the Philharmonia Zurich, conducted by Tito Ceccherini, a connoisseur of new music, explicitly brings out the sensuality of the orchestral part, which is as bound to tradition as it is modern."
Opernwelt, Peter Hagmann, April 2022
“The musical direction of this performance was in the hands of Tito Ceccherini. A great job was done here with the Philharmonia Zurich. Down to the finest detail of the score, every facet was illuminated. An outstanding performance.“
Opernmagazin, Marco Stücklin, 14/2/2022
"On the podium of the Philharmonia Zurich, Tito Ceccherini conducted in brisk yet sensitive tempi. He produced a warm dignified and at times solemn sound from the pit while beautifully giving voice to Poulenc's frequent use of bells."
Opera Gazet, Marco Aranowicz, 20/02/2022
“The other musical protagonist was the inspired baton of the Italian conductor Tito Ceccherini in front of a dedicated Philarmonia Zürich. The Milanese maestro gave solemn, breathy tempos and at the same time accentuated the more dramatic moments with great assurance. His was a moving, refined reading at all times, in which he was able to expose the marvellous chromaticism of the work."
Ópera Actual, Albert Garriga, 25/02/2022
“…and it is all the more wonderful how someone like Ceccherini perfectly masters this repertoire too”
Deutschlandfunk, Jörn Florian, 14/02/2022
"Quirky staging, superb singing: Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre in ZurichA master of his craft, conductor Tito Ceccherini confidently took the Philharmonia Zürich through two uninterrupted hours of Ligeti’s hellish and high-water sounds. [...] don’t see this production if you’re expecting something ordinary. Ordinary, it is not.“
"Quirky staging, superb singing: Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre in Zurich
A master of his craft, conductor Tito Ceccherini confidently took the Philharmonia Zürich through two uninterrupted hours of Ligeti’s hellish and high-water sounds. [...] don’t see this production if you’re expecting something ordinary. Ordinary, it is not.“
Bachtrack, Sarah Batschelet, 04/02/2019
"Highly committed, conductor Tito Ceccherini succeeded in perfectly integrating actor Sebastian Kuschmann as Dante in a conducting role and in giving countertenor Jan Jakub in his outstanding operatic debut at Oper Frankfurt an appropriate hearing as part of Dante's inner voice and, moreover, in welding soloists, choristers, and the orchestra together into cathedral force."
MUSIK HEUTE, 27/6/2021
"They are led by conductor Tito Ceccherini through this nevertheless complicated melange of 'new' sounds and ways of playing and different musical traditions that have been altered and reshaped by the Italian. Ceccherini is internationally active at several opera houses, including the Frankfurt Opera, and gives concerts with renowned orchestras. The Italian has already conducted several works by Lucia Ronchetti - a great leadership of musicians and singers."
Feuilleton Frankfurt, Renate Feyerbacher, 8/7/2021
"Her [Lucia Ronchetti's] music, under Tito Ceccherini's direction, develops from the start a magnetism that is hard to escape."
Bachtrack, Alexandra Richter, 3/7/2021
"The musical interpretation by Tito Ceccherini at the head of the Ensemble Risognanze was effective and precise, certainly one of the advantages of a performance that was rewarded at the end with the applause of the audience present."
Giornaledellamusica.it, Alessandro Rigolli, 14/10/2021
"Tito Ceccherini, a conductor committed to contemporary repertoire and therefore very close to early music, opens up the complex geometries of Purcell's score with a large and active orchestra that brings them to the listener in a string-analytical way without ever sinking into coldness. The result is a performance of great balance."
Le Salon Musical, September 2020
"Conductor Tito Ceccherini had everything under control, provided tension as well as melodic polish, and offered such a complete version of the opera (scholarly-critical edition by Fabrizio Della Seta) as one has probably never heard before."
Onlinemerker, Gerhard Ottinger, 13/1/2019
"Tito Ceccherini followed up his outstanding performance in Norma at the end of last season with the opera orchestra in good form. It's an elegant but soulful sound that flows from the orchestra pit, with a wealth of dynamic gradations from the most delicate pianissimo to slamming act closures, and with intensity that never falters."
Opera Lover, Michael Demel 5/12/2018
"The continuous flow of the orchestral music, always tonal, only sometimes dissonant or enhanced by an acoustic system, is particularly well sustained and compressed by Tito Ceccherini's precise punch. Salvatore Sciarrino's favourite conductor, already spellbinding in From the House of the Dead in Frankfurt this season, has an ideal gesture for maintaining balance, always in place right down to the chorus, which is magnificent in both dynamics and darkness."
RES MUSICA, Vincent Guillemin, 10/7/2018
"The Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, conducted by Tito Ceccherini, was one of the highlights of the evening. The Italian conductor combines with great skill the symphonic approach of a traditional cast with the requirements of an old-style reinterpretation. Such a reading is wonderfully supple, present, and tonally beautiful, giving the score a distinct sense of modernisation as it highlights the many instrumental audacities that herald its later successes."
Opera Online, 2.2.2017
"Tito Ceccherini dives deep into the score with the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra and conjures wonderful melodic arcs from the orchestra pit, bringing well-deserved cheers for the evening's musical achievement."
Online Music Magazine, Thomas Molke
"Conductor Tito Ceccherini, with the superbly prepared Frankfurt Museum Orchestra, crystallises these disparate but tremendously colourful musical planes with aplomb and precision, and he never loses sight of the overall architecture of the three-act work."
Deutschlandfunk, Elisabeth Richter, 2/4/2018
"Tito Ceccherini took to task the full orchestra of the Paris Opera, which excellently served the most diverse facets of the music."
NMZ, Frieder Reininghaus, 31/1/2012
Gorghi: Intavolature, for orchestra (1967) | Orchestra del Teatro Petruzzelli & Anna Caterina Antonacci (Sopran)
04/11/2022, Teatro Mancinelli, Orvieto
Giacinto Scelsi: Anahit | Carolin Widmann | WDR-Sinfonieorchester
Mozart: Symphony No. 40 g minor, KV 550 | La Fenice
Ligeti: Concerto de chambre | Ensemble Intercontemporain
Roussel: Le Festin de l'araignée | Filharmonia Szczecin
Bartok: Divertimento | Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana
Respighi: Fontane di Roma | Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, "Giuseppe Verdi"
Domenico Nordio, Orchestra Sinfonica Di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Tito Ceccherini
Sony Classical, 2018, 19075865302
Stradivarius, Nov 2012, STR 33943
Paola Blondi, Debora Brunialti, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Tito Ceccherini
Amadeus, 2010, AM 243-2
Nationaltheaterorchestra Mannheim, Tito Ceccherini
Coviello Classics, 2009, COV 20911
Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI di Torino, Tito Ceccherini
Stradivarius, Aug 2009, 08011570338037
Kairos, Jul 2008, 0012802KAI
Alfonso Alberti, Marianne Pousseur, Ensemble Risognanze, Tito Ceccherini
Col Legno, 2008, WWE 1CD 20264
Ensemble Risognanze, Tito Ceccherini
Stradivarius, 2007, STR 33734
Francesco D‘Orazio, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Della RAI, Tito Ceccherini
Amadeus, 2007, AM 209-2
Col Legno, 2006, WWE 1CD 20253
Ensemble Risognanze, Tito Ceccherini Stradivarius, Jul 2003, STR 33645