Artist biography
Massimiliano Caldi
With extensive experience in both symphonic and operatic music, a particular focus on contemporary music and the promotion of 19th-century works that have fallen out of the repertoire, and a consistently brilliant and linear conducting style, Massimiliano Caldi (Milan 1967) stands out for his extensive professional training, passed on to him by his teachers Gallini, Acél, Bellugi, Renzetti, Gatti, Chung, and Temirkanov. Massimiliano Caldi is beloved by orchestras for his interpretive consistency, musical taste and also for his human qualities.
The Notes of Life
Milestones in the career of Massimiliano Caldi
Recent engagements in 2024-25 include a return to Poland at the Wroclaw Opera House to conduct the “Magic Flute” directed by Michał Znaniecki and at the Easter Festival L. v. Beethoven with I Virtuosi del Teatro alla Scala, with whom he was again on stage at Teatro alla Scala in November 2024 and then in Belgrade in January 2025. Also in 2024, Massimiliano Caldi conducted a new opera production by the Opera i Filharmonia Podlaska of Białystok, Poland, of Pagliacci/Cavalleria Rusticana combined for the first time in scenic form in the original edition curated by Bärenreiter with the direction of Michał Znaniecki.
Among the most important engagements of the last few years, in Italy we can mention: the concert at Teatro alla Scala in Milan (at the head of “I Virtuosi del Teatro alla Scala”), the debut at Teatro La Fenice in Venice and debut at Teatro Petruzzelli of Bari (leading their respective orchestras) as well as returning to Palermo with the Sicilian Symphony Orchestra with Castelnuovo Tedesco and concerts with the Marchigiana Philharmonic Orchestra; in Poland, returning to the Wrocławska Opera, to the Opera Baltica of Gdansk for the debut of “Don Bucefalo” and at the Opera Podlaska of Białystok with a new liric production with “Via Crucis” by Paweł Łukaszewski and “Cavalleria Rusticana” by Pietro Mascagni, with the direction of Michał Znaniecki; abroad he has also been in Dubai, Turkey with the Izmir State Symphony Orchestra and Skopje with the Philharmonic Orchestra of North Macedonia.
Winner of the first overall prize and gold medal at the 1999 International Conducting Competition“Grzegorz Fitelberg” in Katowice, Poland, Caldi has conducted more than 1,000 concerts to date.
From 2006 to 2010 he was Music and Artistic Director of the Silesian Chamber Orchestra in Katowice and from 2014 to 2017 Principal Conductor and Artistic Consultant of the “S. Moniuszko” Philharmonic in Koszalin.
After completing his 10-year tenure as Principal Conductor of the Milano Classica Chamber Orchestra in 2009, Caldi in April 2012 was appointed Principal Conductor of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic “F. Chopin” in Gdansk, a position he held until August 2020. From 2017 to 2022 he was Principal Conductor of the Carpathian Philharmonic “A. Malawski” in Rzeszów, Poland.
From Milan, Massimiliano Caldi has a strong bond with his city that has allowed him, thanks to the presence of a wide range of musical offerings and attending La Scala Theater and the Conservatory since childhood, to cultivate a passion for music in general and opera in particular until he decided to pursue a conducting career after studying piano and composition at the Civica Scuola di Musica in Milan.
Particularly in Milan, Massimiliano Caldi has collaborated and collaborates with several institutions such as the Accademia Teatro alla Scala with whose orchestra he conducted an opera gala at the Royal Opera House in Muscat, Oman, in April 2012; I Virtuosi del Teatro alla Scala, which he conducted in a concert at the Royal Castle in Warsaw and at the Great Hall of the Warsaw National Philharmonic, among others; the orchestra of the Fondazione I Pomeriggi Musicali in Milan; and the Fondazione Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro Sinfonico di Milano Giuseppe Verdi.
In Italy he has collaborated with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Teatro Regio of Turin, the Teatro Massimo of Palermo, the Teatro Filarmonico of Verona, as well as with major Italian orchestras including the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai of Turin, the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, the Orchestra Sinfonica della Città Metropolitana di Bari, the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, the Orchestra of the “Arturo Toscanini” Foundation of Parma, the Filarmonica Marchigiana, the Orchestra Sinfonica Giovanile del Piemonte, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Sanremo, the Orchestra Regionale di Roma e del Lazio, the Orchestra Filarmonica di Torino, the Orchestra of the “Istituzione Sinfonica Abruzzese,” the Orchestra “Filarmonia Veneta,” and the Orchestra del Friuli Venezia Giulia.
In Poland, he regularly gives concerts at the most important Philharmonics, at a number of opera houses (Grand Theater in Poznań and Opera Baltica in Gdansk) and as part of major Polish festivals. He has also performed with the “Sinfonia Varsovia,” the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the “Sinfonia Iuventus” Orchestra in Warsaw, the Youth Orchestra of the Beethoven Academy in Krakow, the Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, the Philharmonic Orchestra “K. Szymanowski” of Krakow, the Philharmonic Orchestra “A. Rubinstein” of Lodz and the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra “M. Karlowicz” of Szczecin.
Massimiliano Caldi, the only Italian in 2018, wins the Gazzetta Italia award for distinguishing himself, in the symphonic and operatic fields, in promoting Italian music in Poland and Polish music in Italy.
In Europe he has also performed in the halls of Vienna (Musikverein), Linz (Brucknerhaus), Amsterdam, Baden-Baden, Bonn, Frankfurt, Mannheim, and Szeged. In Israel he conducted the Israel Sinfonietta Beer Sheva, in Brazil the Santo Andrè Symphony Orchestra, in Chile the Chile Symphony Orchestra, and from 2016 to 2020 he was regularly invited by the St. Petersburg Philharmonic to the legendary Great Hall.
Beginning in 1991 Caldi has conducted Gluck’s Orphèe et Eurydice, Puccini’s La Bohème, Strauss’s Salome, Nabucco, Rigoletto, La Traviata and Il Trovatore, Verdi’s Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte and Le nozze di figaro by Mozart, Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Bellini’s Norma, and Rota’s I Due timidi and La notte di un nevrastenico, among other operas.
Within the less usual or completely forgotten Italian 19th-century repertoire Caldi conducted Ferdinando Ranuzzi’s Il Macco (Bologna, Teatro Guardassoni, 2006), Don Bucefalo (modern and Polish premiere) and Antonio Cagnoni’s King Lear (premiere performance, Festival della Valle d’Itria 2008 and 2009). During the 2011 edition of the Kraków Polish Music Festival he also conducted the first performance in modern times (in concert form) of Pierre De Medicis opera by Jozef Poniatowski that was staged in the second half of the 19th century in Paris, Milan and Madrid, among other places, and thereafter never performed in its entirety.
His focus is also on contemporary opera; in fact, over the years he has directed world premieres of Tutino’s Peter Uncino, Betta’s Nevebianca and Nicolini’s La zingara guerriera.
In the recording field, Massimiliano Caldi has recorded the CDs Re Lear and Don Bucefalo by Antonio Cagnoni and Salomè by Richard Strauss for Dynamic. In the symphonic field, on the other hand, Caldi recorded the cello concertos by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Gianfrancesco and Riccardo Malipiero with Silvia Chiesa and RAI Turin for SONY CLASSICAL, with the Orchestra da Camera Slesiana the CD Little big music with music by Britten, Holst, Lutoslawski and Kilar for DUX and with the Chamber Orchestra Milano Classica the CDs Orchestral works by Carlo Alessandro Landini for Tactus, Concertos and Symphonies by Alessandro Rolla for Dynamic and Da Ponte did… da ponte, The musical adventures of a traveling poet with music by Mozart for Rugginenti.
In January 2021 at the Music University “F. Chopin” in Warsaw, Massimiliano Caldi discussed, and obtained with honors, his doctoral thesis entitled “Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana: fidelity to the text or performance tradition?”, on which he had been working for the previous 3 years, consulting, among other things, the manuscripts present at the “S. Cecilia” Conservatory in Rome and at the Stanford University Music Library in California.
The experience as the principal lecturer of the Florence Conducting Masterclass in Florence, which ended in 2017, was more recently resumed in 2022 at the Conservatorio “B. Marcello” in Venice, in 2023 at the Conservatorio “N. Sala” in Benevento and finally in 2024 at the Conservatorio “Nino Rota” in Monopoli.