Italian conductor Emanuele Andrizzi spent years laying the groundwork for the creation of the Opera Festival of Chicago, which marked its fifth season this summer.

A native of Rome, Andrizzi led the orchestral program at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University for more than a decade before being appointed in August as director of orchestral studies at Shenandoah University’s Conservatory in Winchester, Virginia.

Over the years, he has conducted at Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Diego Opera, Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana, the Joffrey Ballet, Chicago Philharmonic, Orchestra della Città di Ravenna, Opera Theater of St. Louis and Cluj Symphony in Romania, among others. He has also collaborated with prominent music festivals, such as Grant Park and Ravinia.

Andrizzi, who lives in Chicago with his wife and three children, spoke with Fra Noi about what brought him to the Windy City and his vision to introduce local audiences to lesser-known Italian operas.

ELENA FERRARIN: How did your passion for music develop?

EMANUELE ANDRIZZI: My father liked classical music and my mom had studied piano a little bit when she was young, and they would take me to classical music concerts. My mom started me on the piano when I was about 11 and started sending me to piano lessons when I was 13. I also played the organ for many years, that was my second instrument. I was one of those kids who listened to classical music instead of listening to Duran Duran. I went to a liceo scientifico (a high school with a math/science focus) and I entered the conservatory after high school.

EF: Why did you shift to conducting?

EA: It’s something that grew in me. I used to play a lot of chamber music and I was the official accompanist for three years for the International Composition contest “Valentino Bucchi.” I really enjoyed playing with others. Conducting is a similar concept: You work with other musicians, but you are more of a leader.

EF: What brought you to Chicago?

EA: I moved here in 2007 for a doctorate at Northwestern University. My research was about the difference between music directors and guest conductors. I followed Andrew Davis, the music director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, for a year to see what he was doing and to interview him for my research.

EF: You worked at Roosevelt University from 2013 until earlier this year. What was that experience like?

EA: I was hired when Henry Fogel, who had been president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, was the dean of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt. He wanted to create a more solid, more important orchestral program, and they hired me to do this. It was very stimulating, very interesting and very challenging. I had between 75 to 100 students in the orchestral class and I did most of the great masters, from Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 to Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, and a lot of other stuff.

EF: Why did you take the job at Shenandoah University?

EA: After almost a decade at Roosevelt, I wanted to challenge myself with a new experience. I took a sabbatical from Roosevelt to see if I liked Shenandoah, and then I decided to stay. So now I am commuting between Washington and Chicago.

EF:  What is your approach to teaching students?

EA: I really think that music is one of the few things in this world in which we can avoid fighting with each other. It’s one of the great unifying things. We all want to achieve the same goal, to make great concerts. I really try to foster this kind of approach to music, to play together and to partner with each other. I am not the old-style conductor who yells and demeans people. Of course, sometimes you lose your patience, but not often. At that stage, they are already skilled enough to know some of the repertoire and play their instruments. They just need guidance to refine their skills — and that’s my job, to help them develop their affinities and qualities.

EF: You spearheaded the creation of the Opera Festival of Chicago. What inspired you?

EA: There wasn’t enough Italian opera in Chicago, just the same ones over and over. There is a lot of Italian opera that is not very well-known in America. I spent almost five years just talking to people, meeting, gathering ideas. I also took classes for a master’s in arts administration at Roosevelt to learn about fundraising, marketing and financing, so I could launch the company.

EF: Where do you perform?

EA: In different places, like the Athenaeum Center in Chicago and Cahn Auditorium in Evanston. Next year we will be in Thalia Hall in Chicago and in Skokie (in suburban Chicago). The Opera Festival is not just about bringing great masterworks that are not very well known to the Chicago public, but also to create opera in a fiscally responsible way. Theaters in America are often too large for opera, which is meant to be sung without microphones. Opera is also very expensive — probably the most expensive thing after Taylor Swift concerts!

EF: What is your annual budget?

EA: Under half-a-million per year. Most of our funding is from fundraising. Ticket sales is a small share, as in every company in America. The Illinois Arts Council, the city of Chicago, the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago, and Roosevelt University and DePaul University have supported us over the years. It takes a village.

EF: How would you describe the general public’s appreciation for opera nowadays?

EA: The public we had at the Opera Festival has been growing regularly throughout the seasons. Of course, it’s a process, particularly for a new company. People have to discover you. Last year, we had an article in Opera Magazine. For the past two years, our operas have been broadcast by WFMT-FM and also nationally and internationally on the radio. But the public is not the same as before the pandemic. People are not going for very long shows anymore, so we try to have shows that are 1 to 1-1/2 hours. It helps attract a younger public, which has been a problem for many companies. So far, it’s paid off.

EF: What are your plans for the future?

EA: To grow the Opera Festival to the next level. This season, we doubled the size of our board, which is really important for art companies and nonprofits, and we had two productions that were quite larger than in the past. The goal is to keep building on that, maybe with larger productions, and bring more Italian jewels to Chicago.

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The above appears in the October 2024 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

Passionate about opera in general and lesser known Italian works in particular, Emanuele Andrizzi has set his sights on launching the Midwest’s first opera festival.

Conductor, composer and pianist Dr. Emanuele Andrizzi caps his emails with the declaration of another Italian artist, World War I-era writer Gabriele D’Annunzio: “Ama il tuo sogno se pur ti tormenta,” or “Love your dream even though it torments you.” It’s a refreshing tonic to the somewhat mushy 21st-Century mantra “do what you love.” And it defines Andrizzi’s steady path toward artistic mastery.

Grit and persistence characterize Andrizzi, who started learning his craft, honing his skills and earning his credentials as a teen, considered late for a classically trained pianist. It was grueling and tortuous work, but it paid off. Having previously conducted for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Diego Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Orchestra della Città di Ravenna, Cluj Symphony and Chicago Philharmonic, he now serves as director of orchestras for Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, as well as music director and conductor with the McHenry County Youth Orchestra. Andrizzi also has big plans to mount an area-wide opera festival to rival those in other major American cities.

Energetic and full of good humor — he likes to joke that he’s “the second most famous Italian conductor in Chicago” after the CSO’s Riccardo Muti — Andrizzi took time from a booked schedule to discuss his rise through the musical ranks, his current work and how he hopes to turn his love of opera into a gift for music lovers in the Midwest.

Lou&A: Tell us about your upbringing and how music entered the picture.

Emanuele Andrizzi: I grew up near Rome and lived there until I was about 30. My mom used to play piano as an amateur when she was really young, and my parents would bring me to symphonic concerts. I wanted to become a pianist, but things were a little rough and they couldn’t afford to send me to lessons. But I really wanted it, and I started at 14.

My piano teacher was one of those very serious people, and he said, “You can try, but kids who want to be real musicians start at 7 or 8.” But I told him, “I’m really passionate about it.” It was hard to make up the lost time, even though I was playing 8 to 10 hours of piano a day.

L&A: And at some point, you decided to pursue conducting. How did that come about?

EA: I had been thinking about a career as a pianist but because I started late, I didn’t have the easiness that people had who started younger. I was also an organist in my church, and at some point I was even thinking of becoming an organist and played on some of the best organs in the world.

But at the time there wasn’t a musical high school, so you had to study privately until you finished high school. Then I started thinking seriously about conducting; I started the conservatory when I was 19, and I got my performance diploma when I started to study for conducting.

In Italy it takes a long time to become a conductor; I took 10 years of piano, 7 years of composition and at some point the two things overlapped, but that’s what you have to do before you can even start to train for conducting.

L&A: So what happened once you finished your training in Italy?

EA: I was pretty tired at that point, so I moved to Bard College in New York for 15 months to do a master’s in conducting. After that I started working in a professorship in Portugal, in Porto, then I got married and decided to go back to Italy for a year to conduct. But the musical climate at the time in Italy wasn’t the best, and friends were telling me that to be a conductor, the best path was either to go to Germany or America. I asked my wife if she wanted to go to America or learn German. And guess what she said? [Laughs]

L&A: So what happened once you came back to the U.S.?

EA: I moved to Chicago in 2007 to do my doctorate at Northwestern University and got a full ride orchestral conducting. I didn’t even have an idea what American schools cost. It was a great opportunity. It was also a big discovery. What blew me away was that I had arrived a week early and my teacher at Northwestern said, “I’m going on a tour with another orchestra for the next few weeks, so here are the rehearsal dates for the orchestra here. Do you want to conduct while I’m away?” And I said, “Holy cannoli!” [Laughs.] There arrived a moment when I said, “I really love this.” It’s how you learn the job, how you pay your dues.

L&A: Tell us about your music work at Roosevelt University.

EA: I don’t directly have a conducting class, but I’m the head of the orchestral program where I prepare students for a career in orchestra. At the same time, I have multiple orchestras, and I design their teaching and prepare all the students. So far it’s also given me time to do professional work outside, to do gigs with professional companies in San Diego and St. Louis.

L&A: Then there’s your dream project in opera.

EA: Of course my heart as an Italian beats in the opera. It’s how I grew up, with my grandmother singing arias. When you discover opera, it’s like the day you discover Nutella. [Laughs.] There’s so much great repertoire in opera that hasn’t been presented in Chicago, and that’s my dream job: to present that opera in Chicago. I’ve worked in so many languages: English, French, Russian and Italian. But I’d love to find the undiscovered or little-heard Italian operas and present them here.

I call the project the Opera Festival of Chicago, or OFC. Projects like this have been doing well in other big cities — New York, Boston, Houston and Philadelphia. You can explore so many things in just a few dates: conferences on the music, concerts in museums. It’s very doable, and it seems Chicago offers so many possibilities. I have been working with a team of colleagues and friends for several months now. I’ve been in touch with singers from the area, and I have a lot people getting very excited about it — young singers who are here because Chicago is so rich in its culture. So I’m very optimistic, though since I’m Italian, I only learned to be optimistic when I moved here. [Laughs]

L&A: It sounds like something your hero needs to hear about it.

EA: It’s incredible working in a city with Riccardo Muti, one of the most famous Italian conductors in the world and a great ambassador of Italian music. He’s been such an inspiration; I’d love to present my idea to him. After all, the OFC owes something to Rome. Having grown up there, with its 3,000 years of history and 2,000 years of heart, it’s a great legacy to draw on. You just can’t forget about it.

To learn more about Dr. Emanuele Andrizzi, visit emanueleandrizzi.com.

The above appears in the August issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.