Enrico Onofri, conductor and violinist
Principal Conductor of the Filarmonica Toscanini
Principal Guest Conductor of the Haydn Philharmonie
Associated Conductor of the Orchestre National d’Auvergne
Associated Conductor of the Münchener Kammerorchester
Music Director and Conductor of the Academia Montis Regalis
Founder and Music Director of the Imaginarium Ensemble
Music Director and Conductor of the Real Câmara
Historical performance professor in the Conservatorio Rossini di Pesaro
A fascinating performance made of flexibility, precision, sound and fantasy (…) Onofri (…) gave us more than an interpretation, he played a music game, experimenting at every time, being amazing at every bar. – Diario de Sevilla
Enrico Onofri’s vivid, refined and stylistically irreproachable direction at the head of the Lyon Opera Orchestra, celebrated in the pit the sacred union of music and drama. – Le Monde
Principal conductor of the Filarmonica Toscanini in Parma, principal guest conductor of the Haydn Philharmonie in Eisenstadt, associated conductor of the Orchestre National d’Auvergne, music director and conductor of the Academia Montis Regalis orchestra, Enrico grown up in the antique atelier of his parents in Ravenna (Italy), surrounded by the beauty of the past since the beginning of his music studies, developing hence a passion for the historical performances. As a conductor and soloist, he was so led to explore the repertoire from the 17th to the 20th century creating his personal language through the knowledge of the historical praxes, intended as extraordinary sources of inspiration for new ideas and panoramas in interpretation.
His career began with an invitation from Jordi Savall to be the concertmaster of La Capella Real when he was still a student. Very soon he found himself working with groups such as the Concentus Musicus Wien, Ensemble Mosaiques, and Il Giardino Armonico, the ensemble he led as concertmaster and soloist from 1987 to 2010. In 2002 he entered upon a conductor’s career, which has brought him great acclaim and numerous invitations from orchestras, opera houses and festivals all over Europe, Japan and Canada. Since 2006 he’s guest conductor with the Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla.
Invitations as conductor or as conductor in residence include orchestras such as the Akademie für Akademie für Alte Musik, Camerata Bern, Bochumer Symphoniker, Wiener Kammerorchester, Festival Strings Lucerne, Kammerorchester Basel, Tafelmusik Toronto, Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Real Orquesta Sinfonica de Sevilla, Orquesta de l’Opéra de Lyon, Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia, Orchestra Metropolitana Lisbon, Real Filharmonia de Galicia, Riga Sinfonietta and more.
In the opera field, he conducted opera productions at the Lyon Opéra, Teatro de la Maestranza of Sevilla, Torino Teatro Regio, Halle Staatstheater, among others, working with stage directors such as Alessio Pizzech, Mariame Clément, David Marton, Stephen Lawless.
He founded the chamber group Imaginarium Ensemble to perform the great Italian solo violin repertoire from the early Baroque until the Age of the Enlightenments. Imaginarium Ensemble’s CDs have been awarded many prizes. Among them, the prestigious French Diapason d’or de l’année 2020 for “Into Nature, Vivaldi’s Seasons and other sounds from Mother Earth”
Enrico has performed in the world’s most famous concert halls, including the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, Mozarteum in Salzburg, Philarmonie and Unter den Linden Opera in Berlin, Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the Wigmore Hall and Barbican in London, Tonhalle in Zurich, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, Oji Hall in Tokyo, Osaka Symphony Hall, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, alongside artists like Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gustav Leonhardt, Christophe Coin, Cecilia Bartoli, Katia and Marielle Labèque and more. Many of Enrico’s recordings with Teldec, Decca, Astrée, Naive, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi / Sony, Passacaille, Nichion, Pentatone, Winter & Winter, Opus111, Virgin, Zig Zag Territoires etc., have been awarded prestigious international prizes, such as the Gramophone Award, Grand Prix des Discophiles, Echo-Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, Premio Caecilia, Premio Fondazione Cini of Venice, La Nouvelle Academie du Disque and numerous Diapason d’Or, Choc de la Musique, 10 de Répertoire des disques compacts.
Enrico has been professor of baroque violin and interpretation of baroque music at conservatoire A. Scarlatti in Palermo since 1999, currently at conservatoire G.Rossini in Pesaro. He has been invited to give master classes throughout Europe, Canada, USA (Juilliard School, New York) and Japan. He’s been tutor and conductor with the EUBO (European Union Baroque Orchestra). In 2019 he’s been awarded the F. Abbiati prize as best soloist of the year.
