Biography
Giordano Bellincampi is the Music Director of the Auckland Philharmonia. Previously, he was the Principal Conductor of I Pomeriggi Musicali, Milan, Chief Conductor of the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra from 2013 – 2018, General Music Director of the Duisburg Philharmonic from 2012 – 2017, General Music Director of the Danish National Opera, Aarhus from 2005 – 2013, Music Director of the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra from 2000 – 2006 and, between 1997 – 2000, he was also Chief Conductor of the Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen, the leading contemporary ensemble in Denmark.
Bellincampi enjoys regular relationships as a guest with numerous orchestras and musical institutions around the world, from Scandinavia and Europe, through North America to Asia and Australasia. With an enormous repertoire embracing classical, romantic and contemporary music, he is particularly celebrated for his prowess in the Central European, Italian and Scandinavian symphonic traditions, and for his interpretations of significant choral and vocal works.
Recent highlights with his Auckland Philharmonia have included a complete cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies to celebrate the composer’s 250th anniversary, a gala performance to celebrate the renaming of Auckland’s Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, and a performance of a new horn concerto by Hans Abrahamsen, co-commissioned with the Berlin Philharmonic. He also conducted the New Zealand premiere of Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt, the latest in a sequence of annual concertante opera performances which has seen the orchestra undertake a varied repertoire including Verdi’s Aida and Otello, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. He also made his debuts with the Queensland Symphony and Florida’s Jacksonville Symphony, returned to conduct symphonic programmes with the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento, the Toledo Symphony, Canada’s Victoria Symphony, the Tasmanian Symphony, the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música and the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana. Previous years have also seen acclaimed gala performances of Wagner’s operatic and orchestral music with the Duisburg Philharmonic to mark the re-opening of the orchestra’s home in Duisburg’s Mercatorhalle, as well as a visit to Amsterdam’s legendary Concertgebouw Hall, in repertoire by Nielsen, Sibelius and Beethoven.
During the 23/24 season Bellincampi conducts signature repertoire with the Auckland Philharmonia, including the fifth symphonies of Mahler and Mendelssohn, returns to conduct the Estonian National Symphony and Queensland Symphony and makes his long-awaited debut with the Sydney Symphony. He also leads a new production of Tosca at the Gothenburg Opera.
Bellincampi has excelled in the field of opera since making his debut with the Royal Opera in Copenhagen with La Boheme in 2000. He has since then conducted many of the great Italian works at the Royal Opera with particular focus on Puccini and Verdi, including leading their acclaimed new production of Aida at the opening of their new theatre in 2005. He has also appeared extensively with Deutsche Oper am Rhein, conducting such titles as Luisa Miller, Norma and Cavalleria Rusticana/I Pagliacci. Whilst Music Director of the Danish National Opera, Bellincampi conducted works such as Der Rosenkavalier, Der Fliegende Holländer, Tristan und Isolde, Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte. He also maintains close connections with many of the world’s leading opera singers including Angela Gheorghiu, Joseph Calleja and Roberto Alagna, regularly working with them in orchestral galas and recitals, as well as being a much-requested accompanist by leading instrumentalists such as Sarah Chang and Angela Hewitt.
Bellincampi’s extensive discography includes Ross Harris’s 6th symphony for Naxos with the Auckland Philharmonia, numerous recordings for the Da Capo and Marco Polo labels of Danish composers from the classical era through to the present day including Holmboe, Lumbye, Joachim Andersen, Per Norgard, Ole Schmidt and Ib Glindemann, and the premiere recording of Weyse’s opera Sovedrikken, as well as Italian opera arias with Liping Zhang and the Prague Philharmonia, and Nielsen’s Third Symphony for EMI Classics, and works by Svendsen and Walton. With the Duisburg Philharmonic he released Nielsen’s Violin Concerto with soloist Kolja Blacher.
Born in Italy and moving to Copenhagen at a young age, he began his career as a trombonist with the Royal Danish Orchestra before making his professional conducting debut in 1994. As Associate Professor at the Royal Danish Academy Giordano Bellincampi is dedicated to the work of educating coming generations of orchestra musicians and conductors, and he also regularly gives masterclasses and serves as a jury member for a number of international conducting competitions. In 2010 he was created a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog, an award bestowed by the Danish Royal Family for services to Danish culture, and he also holds the title of Cavaliere from the President of Italy for his international promotion of Italian music.
Recent News
Giordano Bellincampi Triumphs in Completion of Auckland Beethoven Cycle
Italian Maestro Giordano Bellincampi finally brought his Auckland Philharmonia to the much-anticipated finale of their cycle of Beethoven symphonies, planned for the Beethoven 250th anniversary year in 2020, but cruelly cut short by the Covid pandemic. In an interview...
MAESTRO GIORDANO BELLINCAMPI TO EXTEND PARTNERSHIP WITH AUCKLAND PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA
Conductor Giordano Bellincampi has extended his contract with the Auckland Philharmonia in New Zealand for a further three years, taking his tenure up to December 2024. The announcement was made in conjunction with the release of the orchestsra’s 2021 concert season...
Giordano Bellincampi named Conductor Laureate of Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra
Giordano Bellincampi, the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra’s Chief Conductor from 2013 to 2018, has been named the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate. “Bellincampi's time at KSO was characterised by a very constructive and consistent work on developing the orchestra's...
Reviews
“Giordano Bellincampi injected new and irresistible vitality into this uber-familiar score. Languorous emotional outpourings along with an almost balletic sprightliness were the order of the evening. [In Haydn 103], it was the detail that registered most vividly, as Bellincampi caught the inevitability of the composer’s adagio, the endless inventiveness of the slow movement’s variations, and one of Haydn’s most playful and occasionally pungent minuets.”
“Italian-born Danish conductor Bellincampi’s interpretation was always sympathetic and authentic sounding, seemingly sculpting the headlong momentum of the first movement followed by a notable deadpan charm in the second. He drew climaxes of charismatic intensity in the Andante malincolico while the contrasting finale was all humorous bustle and positivity.”
“Giordano Bellincampi is a conductor who physically conveys the sheer joy of music-making from the podium. With Schubert’s rarely-heard Third Symphony, one saw as well as heard that this was a score close to his heart.”
“Giordano Bellincampi has all the stature of the maestros of bygone years, but without the arrogance, or the bullying, dictatorial nature, that often accompanied these men (and they were always men) of interpretive genius. He strode onstage, giving an incandescent smile to both audience and orchestra – a thoroughly likeable maestro. Bellincampi speaks volumes with his remarkably expressive hands. His arms, body, unite in communicating his love and understanding of the music to his orchestra. And, quite clearly, he had profound respect for his orchestra. Especially in the Haydn Symphony, he repeatedly stopped conducting, giving only the occasional inclination of his head, sometimes for quite extended passages. I can think of no greater expression of trust between a conductor and his orchestra.”
More Reviews
“Bellincampi commanded the back-and-forth of this musical discussion superbly. […] Bellincampi’s interpretation was deeply felt and the playing here was thrilling, as effective in the movement’s powerful climax as in its hushed close.”
SIMON HOLDEN, bachtrack.com July 10th 2021
“When Bellincampi carves out these large gestures, one can feel how much passion he works into the melody. “
Rudolf Hermes, JB Press Der Wester
“Duisburg is blessed to have won another great tonal aesthete with Bellincampi”
Pedro Obiera. GB Press NRZ
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