Marcello Cormio
Music Director
Conductor, Symphony & Concert Orchestras
Marcello Cormio has worked as a conductor, opera coach, pianist and educator, both in Europe and in the USA.South Florida Classical praised him as “an assured hand in the pit, conducting the score with vitality while leaving the singers room to breathe in their solos” for Cosí fan tutte at Sarasota Opera’s 2016 season. Mr. Cormio’s debut at the 2014 Sarasota Opera Festival in Ilbarbiere di Siviglia was praised for a “lovely, light touch with the music.”
Upcoming operatic engagements for Mr. Cormio include L’elisir d’amore at the Michigan State University OperaTheatre. He has recently led productions of Cosí fan tutte and Robert Nelson’s A Room with a View at Michigan State University, Street Scene at West Virginia University, and Le nozze di Figaro at the 2015 Sarasota Opera Festival.
Among his recent engagements, he has served as cover conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. This fall, he has collaborated with the Lexington Ballet on a production of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat. Mr. Cormio was seen as music director and conductor of Opera Scenes productions at the Manhattan School of Music in New York, and at the Indiana University School of Music. In 2013 he was cover and assistant conductor for a new production of Turandot at the Opéra National de Lorraine in Nancy, France.
Mr. Cormio has led productions of Die Zauberflöte at the Bay View Music Festival, and of Gounod’s Romèo et Juliette and The Phantom of the Opera with the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre. He has collaborated with internationally renowned soloists, such as pianist Aldo Ciccolini and soprano Cynthia Lawrence. He has appeared with orchestras around the United States and Europe, including the San Antonio Symphony, the Orchestra della Società dei Concerti di Bari, the Bacau Symphony, the Orchestra Sinfonica del Conservatorio di Bari, and the Bay View Festival. He has also led the different orchestras of the Indiana University School of Music and the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra in several performances. In 2013, he had his conducting debut in China,
performing at the head of the University of Kentucky Symphony in concert halls in Hangzhou, Tianjin, and at the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing.
Mr. Cormio has been active as an educator throughout his career. In recent years, he has been regularly invited as guest lecturer and conductor for opera workshops at prestigious academic institutions. In the year 2014-15 he was on faculty at the West Virginia University as Head of the Opera Program. He has recently been appointed music director of the University of Kentucky Philharmonia orchestra, the UK all-campus ensemble.
Mr. Cormio holds graduate degrees in piano, composition, conducting, and musicology from Italian conservatories and universities, as well as a Master of Music degree from Indiana University and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Kentucky. He lives in Lexington with his wife Orsola and their daughter Viola.