Biography

Giampaolo Pretto, previously main coach conductor of the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana in Fiesole, Italy (2012-2018), by 2016 is principal conductor of the Orchestra Filarmonica di Torino (OFT). During the Fiesole years, his aim has always been that of motivating and developing hundreds of young talents now working in many orchestras worldwide. As a professional conductor with a constantly expanding career, he has focused on an extremely wide repertoire of most diverse styles and composers, from classical up to contemporary music. Since his debut as a conductor in 2009 in Verona, with a DVD production of Brahms’ Serenade nr. 1, he achieved dozens of symphonic productions and has been invited by numerous orchestral teams, establishing with many of them a strong artistic relationship.

He closed the 2015 season of the Petruzzelli Theatre in Bari performing Ravel, Battistelli, Stravinsky and Copland, while opening the 2015-16 Season of the OFT in Torino with Mahler’s Ninth. He conducted the italian première of Bach/Stravinsky’s "Four Préludes and Fugue for Chamber Orchestra" together with “Paganiniana” by Casella at the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto (OPV); Brahms’ Serenade op. 11 both in Tbilisi, Georgia and in Italy during the Paliashvili Orchestra tour (2009); Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in Florence with the Orchestra V. Galilei (2013). In 2014, he debuted in Asia on the podium of the chinese Wuhan Philarmonic conducting Schubert’s  “Great” Symphony; in 2015 he conducted the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana in Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony” together with Stravinsky’s “Firebird”; he also conducted works by Brahms, Mozart and Campogrande with the Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. Particularly at ease with the choral symphonic repertoire, he conducted two Masses by Schubert and Bruckner at the Coccia Theatre in Novara and for the Haydn Orchestra in Bolzano, as well as Britten’s “Cantata Misericordium” in Florence and Brahms’ “Nänie” in Bari.

Frequently invited as guest conductor at the Istituzione Sinfonica Abruzzese in l’Aquila covering a wide repertoire from Pergolesi to Wagner, from Beethoven to Ravel, he performed for three years consecutively the New Year’s concert at the Teatro dell’Opera in Florence (2015-18). In 2016 he also conducted two symphonic productions featuring Brahms, Bruckner, Weber, Beethoven and Pretto at the Orchestra Haydn in Bolzano. That same year he performed four concerts for two of the major Italian Festivals, the Torino Classical Music Festival and Mito, in Turin and Milan, the latter also being broadcasted by the National Radio. Again in China in 2017 (Dvoràk’s Seventh Symphony) and 2018 (Strauss’ Aus Italien), in the same year he was at the head of the Unimi Orchestra in Milan with works by Mendelssohn, Casella and Pretto. In 2019, always broadcasted by National Radio, Dvoràk’s New World Symphony in Milan.

He has conducted many italian premières, including Feux d'artifices by G. Connesson for Mito 2018 and the Concerto for Viola by Jennifer Higdon for Mito 2019; as well as other notable works of our time, such as Sciliar by Battistelli, Concerto for audience and orchestra by Campogrande, and many other pieces by Colasanti, Pierini, Glass, Mintzer, Pärt, Rihm, Dessner. He partnered many prestigious soloists such as Gabriela Montero, Enrico Dindo, Andrea Lucchesini, Chloe Mun, Benedetto Lupo, Suyoen Kim, Signum Quartet, Alexander Malofeev, Nils Mönkenmeyer, Ian Bostidge, Pietro De Maria, Jussen brothers, Katia and Marielle Làbeque.

In 2020, after joining again the OPV Orchestra Padova for an all Brahms’ program with Symphony nr. 2 and Haydn-Variations, he made his debut with the Arturo Toscanini Philarmonic in Parma (Mozart Haydn Schubert). After the stop due to Covid, in february 2021 he conducted a streaming concert debuting with the Arena di Verona Orchestra (Mozart and Schubert). In may 2022 he conducted the première of "La notte di San Nicola" by Nicola Campogrande in the Petruzzelli Theatre in Bari, a production which achieved a great success, reaching the remarkable number of more than 10.000 people in twelve performances.

Alongside with the flute and composition diplomas he holds from the conservatories of Verona and Turin, he studied conducting with Piero Bellugi and received many useful advices by Juraj Valčuha. Principal flute of the Orchestra Nazionale della Rai for thirty years and very much involved in chamber music, as a flutist he has given thousands of concerts worldwide, many of which with the Quintetto Bibiena. As a soloist he has recorded many cd’s, among which Mozart’s concertos, Petrassi’s "Concerto", "Ruah" by Ivan Fedele (which the composer dedicated to him) and the "Concierto Pastoral" by J. Rodrigo. He has received many prizes, among them the "Barison" (Trieste 1987), the "Siebaneck-Abbiati" in 2003 with the Bibiena Ensemble, the "G.F. Pressenda" (Alba 2008). Equally active as a composer, in 2014 he premiered his concerto for flute and strings "Nine Rooms" with Enrico Dindo and I Solisti di Pavia and he closed the 2014 Season of the Ex Novo Ensemble in Venice with the quartet "A flat". In 2016 he premiered "Per quelli che volano" for clarinet and orchestra, commissioned by the Haydn Orchestra in Bolzano, and in 2018 "Tre d’amore" with Unimi orchestra in Milan. The Italian TV-channel Sky-Classica has featured him twice in its series of portraits about artists and their activities, i.e. "I notevoli" (2008) and "Contrappunti" (2015).