President-Superintendent
Massimo Biscardi
On 29 October 2024, the Academicians of Santa Cecilia elected Massimo Biscardi as President-Superintendent of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for the 2025-2030 term.
After finishing his classical secondary school studies, Biscardi took a diploma in piano, composition, and conducting, completing master classes with maestros Vincenzo Vitale, Armando Renzi, and Franco Ferrara. He has performed as pianist and conductor with such prestigious musical institutions as the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Verona Arena, Teatro Massimo in Palermo, and Teatro di San Carlo and Orchestra Alessandro Scarlatti in Naples.
At 40 years of age, he began to devote his efforts exclusively to music organization. From 1992 to 2010, he was artistic director of Teatro Lirico in Cagliari; from 2012 to 2014, he was artistic consultant of the Orchestra Mozart under the direction of Claudio Abbado, and from 2014 to 2024 he was Superintendent and artistic director of Fondazione Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, a theatre where, over these ten years, his artistic and organizational development has been considerable and widely recognized.
He has rediscovered or staged numerous rarely performed works, including Oedipe by Enescu, Dalibor by Smetana, Die Feen by Wagner, A Village Romeo and Juliet by Delius, Semën Kotko by Prokofiev, Cherubin by Massenet, Euryanthe by Weber, Goyescas by Granados, The Oprichnik and Cherevichki by Tchaikovsky, Alfonso und Estrella by Schubert, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh di Rimsky-Korsakov, Hans Heiling by Marschner, and Die Vögel by Braunfels. For his careful work of programming and disseminating rare titles from the opera repertoire, he was honoured in 2001 with the Franco Abbiati Italian music critics prize.
Biscardi has also shown enormous commitment to spreading works by contemporary Italian composers, devoting his efforts to figures like Aldo Clementi, Azio Corghi, Sylvano Bussotti, Ivan Fedele, Michele dall’Ongaro, Fabio Nieder, Alberto Colla, Carlo Boccadoro, Francesco Antonioni, and Fabio Vacchi, who were commissioned for new works for the Orchestra del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari or for the Orchestra Mozart.
From 2021 to the present, he has supervised Aus Italien, a revue containing music programmes performed by the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, dedicated to living Italian composers and prominently featuring Salvatore Sciarrino, Ivan Fedele, Carlo Boccadoro, Pasquale Corrado, Caterina Di Cecca, Michele dall’Ongaro, Luca Francesconi, Silvia Colasanti, Azio Corghi, Alessandro Solbiati, Matteo D’Amico, Fabio Vacchi, Marcello Panni, Simone Cardini, Andrea Portera, Federico Gardella, Aureliano Cattaneo, and Claudio Ambrosini. This project earned him his second Franco Abbiati Italian music critics prize, with the following justification: “For the originality in offering the Aus Italien revue, admired for the high quality of its musical performances and audio/video recordings.”
In 2022, he was elected an Active Academician of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
The Board of Directors
The appointment of members of the board of directors of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia is governed by Article 12, subsection 1 of Decreto Legislativo 29 giugno 1996, n. 367 (Government Decree 29th june 1996, no. 367) entitled “Transformation into foundations of opera houses and assimilated concert institutions according to Article 11, subsection 1, letter b) of Law no. 59 of 15 March 1997”, published in the Official Gazette no. 105 of 8 May 1998.
Massimo Biscardi
President Superintendent
Gianni Letta
Vice-president
Roberto Gualtieri
Mayor of Roma Capitale – Director
Luigi Abete
Director
Paolo Arcà
Director
Giorgio Battistelli
Director
Nicola Bulgari
Director
Pier Andrea Chevallard
Director
Elisabetta Colacchia
Director
Giuseppe Cornetto Bourlot
Director
Matteo D’Amico
Director
Vittorio Di Paola
Director
Board of Auditors
Luca Fazio
President
Vincenzo Donnamaria
Antonio Gai