VITO CLEMENTE  won the Franco Capuana International Competition for Orchestra Conductors of the European Community with Puccini’s Manon Lescaut.

He won the first prize of the “Mitsubishi UFJ Trust” with Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda for the best execution of the year in Japan.

His production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale – directed by Enzo Dara – was awarded as the best performance of the year of the State of São Paulo by the generalist newspaper Folha de São Paolo.

He graduated with honors in Conducting, Composition, Piano, Vocal chamber music, Wind band instrumentation, Choir conducting and Choral music at the Conservatorio “Niccolò Piccinni” in Bari, perfecting himself at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena.

After humanities studies he obtained a degree in music disciplines with honors.

He is artistic and musical director of the Traetta Opera Festival, of AMIFest, of the Japan Apulia Festival of Tokyo, of the Tokyo Academy of Music and of the Idea Press Musical Editions USA of New York and also artistic consultant for the Tokyo Music Association.

He is an international reference point for the Tommaso Traetta’s operatic and sacred repertoire and has edited with Roberto Duarte for Idea Press USA the revision of Traetta’s Il Cavaliere Errante, Miserere, Mass in C, Stabat Mater.

He is a scholar of the Apulian musical culture and also edited the publications of Niccolò Van Westerhout’s Doña Flor and Songs for voice and piano and the Third Mass by Michele Cantatore.

He has been musical director and chief conductor of the Teatro della Fortuna opera season in  Fano, of the Lucana Symphonic Orchestra and guest conductor of several institutions such as I.C.O. Orchestra of Lecce, O.T.Li.S. Orchestra of Spoleto, Rossini Orchestra and Tokyo Chamber Opera Theater.

He is usually guest director of I.C.O. Orchestra of the Metropolitan City of Bari and OperaSai of Tokyo.

He has directed in Italy: the Orchestra of the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, the Teatro Comunale of Bologna, the Arena di Verona, the Toscanini Philarmonic, the Orchestra of the Teatro Marrucino of Chieti, the Orchestra of the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele of Messina, the Marchigiana Philarmonic Orchestra in the Theaters of Jesi and Treviso, the Pro Arte, Milano Classica, the Abruzzese Symphony, the Sanremo Symphony, the Bergamo Music Festival Orchestra, the Mediterranean Philharmonia, the Italian Philharmonic, Benedetto Marcello, the Grosseto Orchestra , the Capitanata Orchestra, the Orchestra of Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Bulgarian Philharmonic Orchestra of Plovdiv.

He also directed the final concert of the International Composition Competition August 2 in the 2007, 2008 and 2015 editions from Piazza Maggiore in Bologna, broadcast on national radio and TV channels: Radio3, Rai3 and Rai5.

Abroad He directed: in Albania the National Theater of Opera and Ballet of Tirana, Palace of Congresses, Chamber Orchestra of Tirana; in Argentina the Theater Avenida de Mayo of Buenos Aires; in Brazil the Theater San Pedro in São Paulo, Symphony Orchestra of Parana in Curitiba, Orchestra Unisinos in Porto Alegre; in Germany the Spiegelgalerie des Konigsschlosses by Herrenchiemsee-Munich with the Prager Kammerorchester and at the Pommersfelden Festival; in Korea the Daegu International Festival; in Macedonia the National Theater of Opera and Ballet of Skopje; in Portugal and Quatar the Experimental Opera Theater of Spoleto; in Czech Republic at the National Theater “A. Dvorak” of Ostrava and the Komorni filharmonie Pardubice at the Kostel sv. Simona in Judy in Prague; in Romania the Roman Camerata; in Spain at the Auditorium Nacional de Musica in Madrid; in South Africa the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra in Pretoria and in Hungary and U.S.A. the Taconic Opera of New York.

Since 2004 he has directed in the most prestigious theaters of Japan such as Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Aichi Prefectural Theater of Nagoya, Festival Hall of Osaka, Symphony Hall of Fukuoka, Kobe Kokusai Kaikan, Sapporo Hokkaido Kosei, with works such as La Traviata, Oberto Conte di San Bonifacio, Macbeth and Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi, Rossini’s Barbiere di Siviglia and Nina, ossia la pazza per Amore by Paisiello, Haendel’s Alcina, Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto, Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera, Don Giovanni and Requiem, Maria Stuarda by Donizetti, and Puccini’s La Bohème and Turandot.

He has recorded over twenty CDs and DVDs for Dynamic, Bongiovanni, Tactus and DigressioneMusic. The dvd stage production of Donizetti’s Convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali has been awarded as best dvd (third prize) in the XXXI Critics of Music and Disks context in classic / vocal section. It was also reviewed as a record of the month by Classicvoice with five stars and by the Spanish Opera Actual. The cd Carosello – a tribute to Raffaele Gervasio has been reviewed with four stars by Le Monde de la Musique.

It has about one hundred and fifty first absolute executions.

He has made television and radio recordings for Rai1, Rai3, Raisat, Canale5, Rete4.

He holds International master classes.

As winner of the national competition for qualifications and exams, he is now professor of Theory of Harmony and Analysis at the Conservatorio “Nino Rota” in Monopoli.

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