Enrique Mazzola

Enrique Mazzola is the newly-appointed Music Director Designate at Orchestre National d’Ile de France (ONDIF) from 2012/13 season. Among the most dynamic conductors of his generation, alongside a broad range of operatic conducting, he is an expert interpreter of contemporary music and also specializes in the classical and early romantic periods. Born in Spain to a musical family, he started violin and piano studies at an early age, later graduating to conducting and composition at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan.

Plans for the 2011/12 season include debuts with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National de Belgique and at New National Theatre Tokyo (Don Giovanni) as well as Don Pasquale with Orchestre National de France at Theatre des Champs-Elysées and Glyndebourne on Tour and Falstaff at Deutsche Oper Berlin. Highlights of the 2010-11 season included many highly successful débuts including Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Oslo Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Taipei Symphony, Brussels Philharmonic and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Recent opera engagements include La Cenerentola for Glyndebourne Touring Opera and L'elisir d'amore at both Glyndebourne Festival and Opera de Nice. Future plans include returns to all of these orchestras and a new production at Glyndebourne Festival as well as extensive projects with ONDIF.

Recent seasons have included several highly successful opera productions: Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Deutsche Oper Berlin which received excellent reviews and later toured to the Istanbul Opera Festival; L'Italiana in Algeri at Maggio Musicale and the critically-acclaimed production of Macbeth at Opera du Rhin.

Guest conducting highlights in recent seasons include Orchestre National d’Ile de France at Salle Pleyel, Orquestra Nacional do Porto, the orchestra of Teatro Bellini, Belorussian Philharmonic and the Salzburg Camerata at the Dvorak Prague Festival. He collaborates regularly with orchestras such as the Orchestre National de France; Tokyo Philharmonic; Orchestre de Paris; Russian National Symphony Orchestra; Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; Orchestra Nazionale della RAI; NDR Radiophilharmonie; Orchestre Philarmonique du Monte Carlo; Weimar Staatstheater; Vlaamse Opera and Swiss Radio Orchestra.

He has conducted major European festivals, including an acclaimed new production of Falstaff at the Aix-en-Provence Festival; München Opernfestspiele; Festival de Radio France; Rossini Opera Festival; Biennale of Venice; Wexford Opera Festival; Wiesbaden Maifestspiele; Festival de Granada; and the Buxton Festival. Between 1999 and 2003 he was the Artistic and Music Director of the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte in Montepulciano, where he conducted many symphonic concerts and new operatic productions with the RNCM Symphony Orchestra.

An accomplished interpreter of contemporary music, in 2010 he conducted all-contemporary programmes (including several premieres) at ONDIF and Orquestra Nacional da Porto. He conducted the world premiere of Colla’s Il processo at La Scala in 2001, Medusa by Arnaldo De Felice at the Bayerische Staatsoper and Isabella by Azio Corghi at the Rossini Opera Festival 1998, and many other premieres with major European orchestras.