Giuliano Carmignola

Giuliano Carmignola was born in Treviso, where his violinist father discovered and encouraged his son’s passion for music and where the Vivaldi renaissance began 50 years ago. Luigi Ferro, his first teacher at the Venice Conservatory, was a soloist with the Scuola Veneziana Orchestra that Angelo Ephrikian created in 1947 to perform Vivaldi’s music. He later played with the Virtuosi di Roma, with whom Carmignola was in turn to appear as a soloist from 1970 to 1978, while succeeding Ferro as a teacher in Venice.
Carmignola’s career was launched in 1973 when he was a prizewinner at the International Paganini Competition in Genoa. Having attended master classes with Nathan Milstein, Franco Gulli and Hen-ryk Szeryng, he went on to perform the major violin works of the 19th and 20th centuries under con-ductors of the stature of Claudio Abbado, Eliahu Inbal, Peter Maag, and Giuseppe Sinopoli, including giving the Italian premiere of Henri Dutilleux’s Violin Concerto. As a teacher, he has been on the staff of the Musikhochschule in Lucerne and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana.
For pre-Classical works, Carmignola has two instruments, the superb Floreno Guidantus of 1739, and an anonymous 18th-century violin owned by the late Angelo Ephrikian, who also came from Treviso and who deciphered the first Vivaldi manuscripts to be brought to light after World War II.

2001
Makes his US debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center.

2002
His rapturously received debut at the BBC Proms in August at London’s Royal Albert Hall is broadcast nationwide by the BBC.

2003
Leads the Academy of Ancient Music throughout the UK, tours Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands, is soloist with the Basle Chamber Orchestra, and makes his debut at the Bos-ton Early Music Festival. This year Carmignola becomes an ex¬clusive artist of Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv Produktion.

2004
In October in Bologna, Carmignola and Claudio Abbado begin a three-year series of Mo-zart concertos to be given throughout Europe with the Orchestra Mozart; other engage-ments include performances with Les Violins du Roy (under Bernard Labadie), the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra (under Ton Koopman), the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and a highly acclaimed US tour with the Venice Baroque Orchestra, featuring Vivaldi for the inaugural season at Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles.

2005
Performances throughout the UK with the Academy of Ancient Music, tours of Europe and Japan with Andrea Marcon and the VBO, and concerts with the Mahler Chamber Or-chestra. CD/SACD release this year, Carmignola’s highly acclaimed debut recording for Deutsche Grammophon: “Concerto veneziano” with Andrea Marcon and the Venice Ba-roque Orchestra.

2006
Carmignola plays much Mozart with Abbado and the Orchestra Mozart in numerous Ital-ian venues and Salzburg. Mozart is also prominent in his concerts with the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto in Italy and Munich and with the Academy of Ancient Music in Bel-gium, Great Britain and on tour in the US. He appears with Marcon and the VBO in Ger-many (including the Frauenkirche in Dresden and the MDR Musiksommer festival in Weimar), Spain and Austria (including the Vienna Musikverein together with violinist Viktoria Mullova). His world-premiere recording of five unknown Vivaldi violin concer-tos with Marcon and the Venice Baroque Orchestra is released with great success.

2007
The year opens with performances of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Basle Cham-ber Orchestra in Switzerland, Austria and Germany, followed by a recital tour in Japan. Carmignola and the VBO under Marcon undertake a very successful tour of the USA dur-ing which they appear at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and Carnegie Hall in New York. They also tour South America, and appear in Germany and France. Mo-zart’s Violin Concerto no. 5 is on the programme when Carmignola appears with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conductor Roberto Abbado in Scotland. He plays Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos with the Orchestra Mozart under Claudio Abbado on a tour of Italy, and Bach, Vivaldi and Locatelli with the Academy of Ancient Music on tour in Great Britain. Appearances with the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Austria (including the Vienna Musikverein). Festival appearances include the Musikfest Bremen with the VBO and Marcon performing Vivaldi, and the Lucerne Festival with The Matteis Project En-semble performing Matteis’s A clear view of heaven.

2008
Carmignola appears with the Venice Baroque Orchestra and Andrea Marcon in Switzer-land and at the Rheingau Music Festival. Concerts with the VBO in France, Germany and on tour in Japan and South Korea, with the Orchestra Mozart and Claudio Abbado in It-aly, the Orchestra della Toscana in Italy, and the Academy of Ancient Music in Germany and Great Britain (including London’s Wigmore Hall). Releases this year include Mo-zart’s Violin Concertos and the Sinfonia concertante (with violist Danusha Waœkiewicz) with the Orchestra Mozart under Claudio Abbado and Vivaldi Concertos for Two Violins in which Carmignola is partnered by Viktoria Mullova and the Venice Baroque Orchestra conducted by Andrea Marcon. For this recording Carmignola performs on the “Stradivari Baillot” of 1732 which was kindly loaned by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio of Bolo-gna, and Mullova on her Guadagnini from 1750.

2009
Carmignola will perform Vivaldi Concertos with the VBO in the USA; recital tour with Viktoria Mullova in Italy, Mozart violin concertos with the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées in France, Germany and in the Baltic countries; performances with the Orchestra Mozart in Italy and the United Arab Emirates. Scheduled for release this year: “Concerto Italiano” with the VBO conducted by Andrea Marcon, featuring works by Vivaldi and others; Carmignola will also be the soloist in Claudio Abbado’s new recording of works by Pergolesi.