About
Italian conductor Claudio Vandelli was born in Milano in 1967, where he studied piano, clarinet and conducting. He then pursued his clarinet studies with Antony Pay and conducting with personalities such as Sergiu Celibidache or Carlo Maria Giulini.
From the age of 20, part of his professional life has been devoted to recognizing young talented musicians and forming them to professional orchestral musicians.
In 1999 he has been engaged by Martin Engstroem to participate in the creation of the Verbier Festival Orchestra. He was its Director of Music Department and Music Director James Levine's assistant until 2007.
Claudio Vandelli worked with a number of guest conductors in Verbier: Jiri Belohlávek, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Gianandrea Noseda, Michail Pletnev, Mstislav Rostropovich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Yuri Temirkanov.
He then formed the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, and conducted their first international tour in April 2005, with Khatia Buniatishvili as soloist.
In July 2013, he was resident conductor in Verbier and conducted the debut concert of the new orchestra of the Verbier Festival Music Camp.
Other Festivals where he conducted include the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in France, the Baden-Baden Festspiele and at the European Classic Festival Ruhr in Germany, the Minsk Music Festival, the "BeMus" Festival in Belgrade, the Sochi and Yaroslavl Festivals in Russia, the Gabala Festival in Azerbaijan, the "Youth 4 Youth Music Festival" in Thailand.
As a guest conductor he has performed in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Canada, Cyprus, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Montenegro, Rumania, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United States.
Orchestras include leading ensembles such as the Royal Philharmonic in London, the Hamburger Symphoniker or the Gürzenich Orchestrer Köln in Germany, the Vienna Volksoper, the Calgary Philharmonic in Canada, the Royal Danish Orchestra or the Moscow Soloists.
He has worked with soloists such as Alena Baeva, Yuri Bashmet, Claudio Bohorquez, Khatia Buniatishvili, Gautier Capuçon, Gianluca Cascioli, Corey Cerovsek, Alexander Chaushian, Barbara Hendricks, Cyprien Katsaris, Marthe Keller, Sergey Krilov, Nino Machaidze, Denis Matsuev, Alexander Melnikov, Anna Netrebko, Alexei Ogrintchouk, Anna Samuil, Erwin Schrott, Isabelle van Keulen, Pavel Vernikov.
He is permanent guest conductor of the "Novaya Rossiya" State Symphony Orchestra in Moscow. He conducts with them at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory Grand Hall works such as Mahler's Symphonies no. 1 and 5, Verdi's Requiem or Strauss' "Also sprach Zarathustra" or “Tod und Verklärung”.
A CD of the live recording of Igor Raykhelon's Viola Concerto with Yuri Bashmet and this orchestra has been recently published by the British label Toccata Classics.
Claudio Vandelli also conducted them for the "Italian Night" at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games, in February 2014, with soloists Barbara Frittoli, Enrico Dindo, Massimo Mercelli and Laura Bortolotto.
In June 2015, Claudio Vandelli conducted the "Summer Night Concert" of the German television ZDF, open air for the first time at Königsplatz in Munich, with soloists Anna Netrebko, Jonas Kaufmann, Thomas Hampson, Ildar Abdrazakov and Elena Zhidkova.