Orchestra V.Galilei, Flavio Emilio Scogna, Erika Liuzzi, Paolo Pecchioli, Donato Di Gioia & Marco Santià

The Italian composer and conductor Flavio Emilio Scogna is one of the relatively few figures to have gained wide recognition in both these fields. As a conductor, he has an unusually wide range, extending from the Baroque to championing new works. Scogna was born in Savona, Italy on August 16, 1956. He attended the Genoa Conservatory and went on to the University of Bologna and then to Rome, where he studied with Franco Ferrara. Between 1984 and 1988, he worked with Luciano Berio, who became a mentor and friend. He studied not only composition with Berio but also conducting, and worked with the older composer on a new realization of Paul Hindemith's Wir bauen eine Stadt (1931). Beginning in the mid-'80s, Scogna has issued both operatic and instrumental compositions that have been widely performed in Italy. Among these are the Sinfonia concertante (1987), the radio opera L'arpa magica (1998), and the two-act opera La memoria perduta, which was commissioned by the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and performed there in 2002. His works have also been performed at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Teatro Communale di Firenze, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Konzerthaus in Vienna, among other top venues. His works have been heard on European radio broadcasters including Italy's RAI, the BBC, and Radio France. Scogna's recordings as a conductor have included contemporary music, newly unearthed Baroque works, and crossover 20th century pieces by the likes of Nino Rota (the opera I due timidi, in 2004) and Gian Carlo Menotti, whose The Medium was issued by the Brilliant label in 2018 with Scogna conducting the Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana. He has been associated with that label and also with Tactus, for which he led a 2007 performance of the original chamber version of Rossini's Petite Messe Solonelle with the Coro da camera Petrassi. Scogna won the De Sica Award for Classical Music in 2013 -- previous winners include Berio, Riccardo Muti, and Claudio Abbado.
© James Manheim /TiVo