Maestro Dante Santiago Anzolini has conducted with great success in Europe, the United States, South America and South Africa. His wide repertoire includes music of all styles; he has conducted symphonic concerts, operas, and ballets, and he has worked in other diverse genres such as pop music, jazz, and film music. While Mo. Anzolini values his relationship with the great musics of the past, he also enthusiastically supports premieres of new music and young composers, who must be nurtured so they become the tradition of the future. To this end, he has conducted numerous world premieres of orchestral pieces, operas and ballets.
As a composer he has already produced various works for diverse ensembles. The traditional influences like Bach, late Mozart and late Beethoven are of course present, but also Mahler, Bela Bartok, early Schoenberg, the lyricism of Puccini and the precision of Ravel. His style is multifaceted and he is fascinated with the interrelations between classical and pop music, also being inspired by Elton John and Queen, the innovative art of Ligeti, and Berio. He absorbs music from a constant search for popular and folkloric materials, and links them to the roots of the Western heritage – from the polyphony of the 13th century to the jazz of our days.
He is a great believer in making classical music accessible to the public, and particularly enthusiastic about how to use music to improve, nurture, and enhance the lives of others, particularly youth. In the various countries in which he has held positions, he has tried hard to promote the works of local composers to show audiences that classical music does not always have to originate from remote countries far from them.
Origins
Mo. Anzolini is the son of Lorenzo Dante Anzolini and Lucila Wawzyniak, Italian immigrants (born in San Michele al Tagliamento, Friuli-Venezia Giulia) and Chilean (born in Punta Arenas, Magallanes). His father was a carpenter with training in Italy, who then became a haulier, and his mother was a housewife who ran a delicatessen to support the family. Mo. Anzolini was born in the “Roma” neighborhood of the city of Berisso, in the Province of Buenos Aires, named “capital of the immigrant”, as it welcomed thousands of immigrants from all over the world. In his first home, communication was mostly conducted through his father’s Friulian dialect with his uncles and aunts, with Spanish being a secondary language for the first 11 years of his life. His spectrum of artistic and scientific interests is due to the unique multicultural facets of his birthplace. The ethical origins of his leadership can be traced to the daily teachings of his parents, to whom he owes his best achievements.
Beginnings
Though his parents were not musicians, his grandfather Luigi Anzolini was an organist and choir director in Latisana, Provincia di Venezia, who taught music to all his children, with the marked exception of Lorenzo, who claimed not to love music in order to escape his father’s old-fashioned way of teaching. Stemming from this repressed love, Lorenzo sent his son to study the piano, while Lucila was enamoured with the sound of the violin. At the age of 7, after his parents had witnessed his aptitude for playing without any prior instruction, Mo. Anzolini entered the Gilardo Gilardi Conservatory of La Plata (Argentina), where he was directed to violin and piano studies. He then studied the piano without owning an instrument until the age of 11 – practising for many hours on a table, with only his mental ear to realise the sounds – when his Chilean grandmother Olga Mayorga de Wawzyniak bought him his first piano. He graduated as Superior Piano Professor with a recital that included Beethoven’s Sonata op 111, J.S. Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, and Johannes Brahms’ Paganini Variations among other pieces. At the same institute, he also studied composition with Gerardo Gandini, making his debut at the age of 15 as a pianist and composer in a recital where he presented his four preludes for piano. As a teenager he read Hermann Scherchen’s treatise on conducting, which was the theoretical model he adopted for his preparation as a conductor.
First works, first compositions
He was a violist and violinist in youth orchestras, while simultaneously studying oboe and percussion, as he wished to develop comprehension of the different instrument families as part of learning to be a conductor. At age 17 he became a high school teacher at the Escuela Normal de Berisso: he formed a choir that presented his vocal and instrumental arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s “Lo que vendrá”. He had already gained fame as an accompanist of singers and instrumentalists, so he soon was engaged as a soloist of harpsichord – basso continuo – and pianist in the Orquesta de Cámara de la Plata (Chamber Orchestra of La Plata), where he remained for 9 years. He worked as a choir conductor, created the Youth Choir of the University of La Plata (Argentina), and was also Acting Director of the Lyric Opera Choir of the Teatro Argentino in the same city. Simultaneously, he studied mathematics at the National University of La Plata, and also cultivated his passion for international literature, romantic poetry, universal history, alternative medicine and languages. He made his debut as a conductor at the age of 18, conducting his own music for orchestra as an accompaniment to the play Pichrocole by Rabelais, at the “Escuela de Teatro de La Plata”.
First studies in conducting
When he felt ready – having played various instruments, accompanied instrumentalists, coached singers, conducted choirs, and composed piano and orchestral music – Mo. Anzolini decided to seek conducting lessons. He began his orchestral conducting studies in Argentina, privately with Mo. Mariano Drago Sijanec, of Slovenian origin, a graduate of the Prague Conservatory who had created the first chair of orchestra conducting in South America, who had guided Carlos Kleiber in his first steps. After Mo. Sijanec’s death in November 1986, he decided to emigrate to study in the USA at the Yale School of Music.
Studies at Yale University (1987-1992)
Dante Santiago Anzolini studied orchestral conducting (1987-1992) with Mo. Eleazar de Carvalho at Yale University, where he was awarded two Masters Degrees (1989, 1990) with the highest grades, and the Doctorate in Musical Arts (1997). He was named Banner Bearer of the Music School for the 1989 graduating class (an honor granted to the best student of the year). At that university he received the Harriet Gibbs Fox Memorial Award (1988), the Charles Ives Scholarship (1988), the Irving S. Gilmore Scholarship (1989), the Horatio Parker Memorial Award (1989) and the Dean’s Award (1990), given to “the most outstanding alumnus of the class”. He was Associate Conductor of the Yale Contemporary Ensemble (1990), where he worked closely with composer Jacob Druckman, as well as participating in master classes with Lorin Maazel, Erich Leinsdorf, and Kurt Sanderling. His doctoral thesis on the “Harmonic Organization of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring” interprets the chordal structure of the piece in an original way. While at Yale, he gave recitals as a pianist and harpsichordist, and was a member of the Yale Philharmonia Orchestra in three roles: violist, pianist and percussionist.
From 1987 to 1989 he served as the music director for the Dixwell Congregational United Church, the oldest African American church of that denomination in the USA. He still holds a special affection for the church and attends services there when he can. One of his recent compositions was dedicated to them.
Tanglewood Summer Festival and Bonn (1992-1995)
He received the only award given to a young conductor at the Tanglewood Summer School in 1992; the “C. D. Jackson Conducting Award”. There he assisted Mo. Dennis Russell Davies, and conducted in both Contemporary Music Week and the Chamber Music Series. The encounters with John Harbison, and Maestro Dennis Russell Davies were a turning point in Anzolini’s artistic life. As Davies arrived late for a rehearsal, the young conductor replaced him; later, Mo. Davies offered him a position at the Oper der Stadt Bonn, Germany, where in 1993 he was appointed “Solorepetitor mit Dirigierverphlichtung”. There in 1994, he made his debut in a production of Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci staged by Gian-Carlo Del Monaco. Other productions with the Bonn Opera were: Puccini’s La fanciulla del West and Tosca, Offenbach’s Les Contes de Hoffmann; Gomes’ Il Guarany.
Bern, Switzerland and Klaipeda, Lithuania (1995-1997) start of European career
In 1995 he conducted with great success a new production of La Traviata in Klaipeda, Lithuania, which received just under half an hour of applause from the audience – remaining a legendary performance. He made his debut in Bern, Switzerland with Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and became Kapellmeister of the Stadttheater Bern, where he conducted Le Nozze di Figaro, Madama Butterfly, Der Zigeunerbaron, as well as a ballet with music from Stravinsky, Bartok, and Tchaikovsky. At the Stadttheater he also conducted with great success ballets with music by Donizetti and Pergolesi, and a concert with the Bern Symphony Orchestra. He was invited to conduct concerts with the orchestras of Granada, Valencia and Gijón (Spain), which marked the beginning of his European career.
Philip Glass, in Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Washington DC (1994-2015)
In 1994 he met Philip Glass, playing a three-piano recital with him in Stuttgart, together with Dennis Russell Davies. That was the beginning of a long period of collaboration spanning several continents. In 1998 Mo. Anzolini prepared the singers, choir and orchestra of Lisbon for the world premiere of ” O Corvo Branco” (the White Raven) at the Universal Exposition of Portugal. In 1999 he conducted the second world premiere performance of the Choral Symphony No. 5 in Brussels, Belgium, with the Belgian Radio Orchestra, and in 2000 he participated in a recording project of the Requiem with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2001 Anzolini was also contracted by the Choral Arts Society of Washington D.C. to conduct the American premiere of said Choral Symphony at the Kennedy Center.
Teaching in Boston and Brazil 1998-2006
Mo. Anzolini has been Music Director of the Itú Festival, Brazil, succeeding his guide and mentor Eleazar de Carvalho (1997-1999). After receiving a fax from John Harbison (whom he had met at Tanglewood), he applied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which was conducting a worldwide search for a new Music Directory of the MIT Symphony Orchestra following the retirement of the incumbent. He was the top choice in this search and remained with MITSO for 8 years (1998-2006), in which he transformed the orchestra into one of the best youth ensembles in Boston, being an enthusiastic proponent of new music and young composers, giving various world premieres of works by established local composers as well as composition students.
His legacy at MIT consists of the orchestra’s first European tours in its history (2000, 2002), and acclaimed performances of Mahler Symphonies, Stravinsky’s three Ballets Russes and an historic rendition of Ives’ great 4th Symphony, recorded live, and various premieres of John Harbison’s music. Orchestral Program of the New England Conservatory (2002-2003), He was Guest Conductor for the Youth Orchestra of the Americas (2011-2012). He has given numerous lectures and master classes on musical arts, especially aimed at young people in several countries.
MITSO had never performed pieces on such a scale before his directorship. He has very fond memories of the beautiful relationship with his students, whom he remembers with special consideration for their talent, intelligence and unassuming honesty. Mo. Anzolini created an orchestra that rivalled the best conservatory orchestras in Boston, receiving many positive reviews from music critics in the area of the time. He created a chamber orchestra with the best string talent at MIT, giving high quality performances of pieces by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, and other classics of the string repertoire. He also taught conducting at the Bang on a Can Festival in Western Massachusetts (2004).
By unanimous decision of a jury of professors, he was selected as Director of the Orchestral Program of the New England Conservatory (2002-2003), He was Guest Conductor for the Youth Orchestra of the Americas (2011-2012). He has given numerous lectures and master classes on musical arts, especially aimed at young people in several countries.
International Awards, Vienna debut 2005-2007
In March 2005, he was one of eight conductors chosen from more than 220 contestants for the Conductors Preview (the March 2005 national conductors’ convention) organized by the American Symphony Orchestra League (A.S.O.L.). This award was given to him for his “talent, accomplishments and qualities”. Mo. Anzolini made his debut at the Vienna Musikverein in September 2007 in concert with the Orfeón Donostiarra del País Basco accompanied by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
Budapest, Hungary, Capetown, Southern Hemisphere.
He conducted the Matav Orchestra in Budapest, Hungary, in a program of film music (Bernstein, Gershwin and Nino Rota), to great public and critical acclaim. In September 2005 he made his South African debut conducting the MIAGI Festival Orchestra in Johannesburg and Cape Town, in a program with the legendary singer Miriam Makeba.
He was Music Director of the Orchestra of the Teatro Argentino de La Plata. The orchestra grew to previously unknown artistic levels, recognized by the public and the critics. He offered world premieres, and the first versions of pillars of the orchestral repertoire; works by Mahler, Stravinsky, and Bela Bartok. There he offered performances of “Il Trovatore” and “La Traviata”. He was awarded “Best Conductor of the 2006 Season′′ by the Argentine Music Critics Association. He organized the first calling to Argentine composers with unpublished pieces for the first time in the theater’s history – in keeping with his unwavering support for contemporary music.
Linz, Austria 2004-2015
Mo. Anzolini has worked as Principal Guest Conductor of the Linz Opera in Austria, where he conducted annual opera and ballet productions from 2004 to 2015, including “Otello”, “Rigoletto: and “Ballo in Maschera” by Giuseppe Verdi, the ballet Cinderella by Prokofiev, culminating with the great success of the opening of the 2014-2015 season with “Tosca” by Puccini, widely praised by the Viennese critics. In May 2006 he conducted the Bruckner Orchester Linz on a tour of Austria and Germany (Dornbirn, Cologne, Stuttgart, and Düsseldorf) with Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony (first version 1874) and the European premiere of Philip Glass’s Eighth Symphony, receiving resounding public response and high critical acclaim. Further performances of the Bruckner Orchester Linz included a visit to Norway with Mahler’s First Symphony and the Austrian premiere of Jindrich Feld’s concerto with Michael Kofler, as well as the 2012 Ars Electronica concert, in a program that included Varese’s Arcana, and Ligeti’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, with Maki Namekawa as soloist.
Metropolitan Opera 2008-2011
Mo. Anzolini made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2008, after being selected for his performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Otello” in Linz, Austria. That debut, conducting Philip Glass’s opera “Satyagraha” has been considered an extraordinary public and critical success, as well as Philip Glass’s greatest operatic triumph in New York since the memorable premiere of “Einstein on the Beach” in the 1970s. The wonderful reception of chorus and orchestra to an unknown conductor, as well as the memorable work done with the singers in the company of Dennis Giauque, a splendid repetiteur who assisted the Mo. Anzolini, can only be described as the pinnacle of the first part of his career. Described as a ” impressive young conductor” (New York Times, Anthony Tommasini), who made a “splendid” (New York Post, Clive Barnes) and “memorable debut” (Washington Post, Anne Midgette). It was a unique success in the Metropolitan’s recent history, where more than 25,000 people attended the seven performances, the last three of which as sold out. He repeated this in 2011 again with Satyagraha.
Germany and the United States 2009-2013
In the same period, his performances include his debut at Rhein Opera with Morton Feldman’s “Neither”, choreographed by Martin Schlaepfer, and several concert tours with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas in Peru and Ecuador (2011) and Mexico (2012). At the same time, he received invitations to conduct the New Mexico Philharmonic in the United States. He was also called to perform in the orchestras of Paraná (Brazil) and the Filarmonica de Montevideo.
The Besançon competition, debut in Turin and Milan. Success in Washington
DC 2015
Maestro Anzolini was invited to participate as a juror in the oldest and most prestigious conducting competition on the planet. This developed over many locations – Paris to Beijing, then to Berlin and Paris, then to Montreal, and finally to Besançon where the final took place. Immediately after this honor, Anzolini made his debut as guest conductor at the Teatro Regio di Torino, where he conducted Akhnaten, Philip Glass’ opera, with the choir and orchestra of that institution, which also traveled to Milan for an extra performance in that city. He was also asked to conduct the world premiere of “Appomatox”, an opera by Philip Glass based on stories of the Civil War and the relationship between Martin Luther King and President Lyndon B Johnson. Tazewell Thompson’s stage direction created an extraordinary success with audiences and critics at the Washington National Opera.
Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra 2017-2023
From April 2017 to 2023, after winning an international search, Maestro Dante Santiago Anzolini took charge of the Artistic Direction of the Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra (OSG). During his tenure he created the International Festival “Music for the Planet” in the Galapagos Islands, uniting symphonic music of all styles with the awareness of environmental protection. He also created the ‘Inter-religious Music Festival’ to perform musics of various faiths of Guayaquil in the temples of different creeds.
In his time as Artistic Director of the OSG, Mo. Anzolini presented over 40 concerts yearly – all free admission and often fully attended – with an extremely varied programme, leading Ecuadorian premieres of pieces by Mahler, Scriabin, Richard Strauss, Ravel, Hindemith, Bartok and Luciano Berio, among others. In keeping with his interest in contemporary music, he premiered four symphonies by by Luis Humberto Salgado – a contemporary Ecuadorean composer. These were Symphonies No. 1 (“Andina’), No. 2 (Sintética), No. 3 (Rococó, revised with the composer’s manuscripts) and No. 8, his Cello Concerto with Dennis Parker as soloist. He also conducted the world premiere of the cantata “Azucena de Quito” by Joaquín Rodrigo.
Mo. Anzolini created a new Youth Symphony Orchestra in October 2018, with exceptional results in concerts including works by Schubert, Vivaldi, Bizet and Copland. Finally, Mo. Anzolini created and conducted the OSG Choir, which has participated in operas and in all national premieres of music written for symphonic-choral ensembles.
Mo. Anzolini organized educational concerts with the presentation of the music of the saga “Star Wars” where he also lectured on the orchestration for the music of John Williams. These concerts were always well attended and received enthusiastically by the public.
Mo. Anzolini devised and staged the production and premiere of Puccini’s opera “La Bohème” (2018) and the presentation of Verdi’s “La Traviata” (2019), with the assistantship of pianist and conductor Dennis Giauque. In “La Traviata,” he was also stage director, chorus master, piano accompanist and coach, lighting designer, translator of the text and writer of the program notes. These operas were so well received that extra performances had to be added to satisfy the great demand. In the field of Ballet, he gave the Ecuadorian premiere of “The Firebird” and the Guayaquil premiere of “The Rite of Spring”, both by Igor Stravinsky, plus choreographies of “La Mer” by Debussy and “Verklaerte Nacht” by Schoenberg.
During the global pandemic, Maestro Dante Santiago Anzolini led the OSG in the first orchestra on the South American continent on July 23, 2020 at the church Santuario de la Divina Misericordia in Guayaquil. The orchestra performed 17 concerts of a season created for the coronavirus emergency, playing several local and some world premieres. The OSG was the only Ecuadorian orchestra to offer a concert for the 200th anniversary of the independence of the city of Guayaquil, on October 9, 2020, with the participation of six national singers from three generations: Fresia Saavedra, Hilda Murillo, Beatriz Gil, Astrid Achi, Danilo Parra, and Jorge Luis del Hierro.
From the year 2020, with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mo. Anzolini, proposed an agreement with SOLCA (society against cancer – Guayaquil) to teach reading and solfeggio classes to children with cancer. Instruments such as pianos and violins were delivered to the children.
In his time with the OSG, Mo. Anzolini held fast to his principles of making music accessible to the public, championing local music, and using music to educate and better the lives of the youth.
Collaborations
Mo. Anzolini has accompanied artists such as Leon Fleisher, Francisco Araiza, Richard Croft, Robert Levin, Michael Kofler, Frank Morelli, Dennis Parker, David Shifrin, Miriam Makeba, Erick Friedman, Maki Namekawa, Noa Wildshut, Antonio Lotti, Giuseppe Naviglio, Lucia Naviglio, among many other great artists. He has worked with and conducted music by composers Philip Glass, John Harbison, Terry Riley, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Beaser, Lisa Bielawa, Jacob Druckman, Oliver Knussen, Ezra Laderman, Tania León, Yehudy Wyner, Wim Mertens, Nicola Scardicchio, Marlos Nobre, Gerardo Gandini, to name but a few. He has also worked with stage directors Robert Wilson, Werner Herzog, Gian Carlo Del Monaco, Phelim McDermott, and Tazewell Thompson, among others.
From 2023
On September 19, 2023, Mo. Anzolini suffered an unexpected attack from an unknown person near his home in New York State. He was stabbed in the left arm, with his left radial nerve being severed, causing loss of control of his wrist and fingers. After some months of recovery Mo. Anzolini returned to São Paulo in May 2024 to conduct the OSESP in a program dedicated to Ballet Grupo Corpo. In October he conducted “The Voyage” by Philip Glass at the inauguration of the Muzikinis Teatras in Klaipeda, Lithuania (after a 30 year absence from the city). In February 2025 he returned to Carnegie Hall for a concert tribute to Mother Teresa with the Orchestra of Saint Luke’s, soprano Catherine Wethington and baritone Sean Michael Plumb, and in September 2025 reprised the majority of this concert tribute with the Baltimore Symphony at Strathmore Hall, Maryland.
Composer
As a composer, he has written pieces for solo piano, for orchestra and for chamber ensembles, having also made orchestrations and arrangements of all kinds of music since his adolescence. Mo. Anzolini made his debut as a pianist and composer at the age of 15, premiering four preludes of his own, influenced by Ravel, Scriabin and Chopin. His musical evolution continued with several pieces for violin and piano, a triple concerto for violin, cello and piano in dodecaphonic style, culminating with his own orchestral music written as an accompaniment to Rabelais’ Pichrocole. Still in his early days, he wrote a sonata for viola and piano with strong influences from Alban Berg. After this first period, he wrote sketches but stopped composing until the early 2000’s. He then resumed composing to write pieces for his son, then a piano student in Boston. He is currently working on his second symphony, a concerto for violin and orchestra, and variations for Piano. The pieces written for his son became the “Quaderno per Daniel”, a collection of pieces dedicated to the study of transposition, for young pianists.
His piano version of Arnold Schoenberg’s Variations op. 31, the first and only one in history, has been published by Belmont and distributed worldwide by Universal Edition Vienna, and recently premiered in Tokyo by pianist Hiroaki Ooi, in July 2015. His piano solo transcription of “Verklaerte Nacht” by Schoenberg, will be released in February 2026 by Universal Edition.
The “Preludium and Fugue Fantasies”, a trio for piano, oboe and viola, saw its first performance in Rio de Janeiro, and was recorded in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2015. Among his pieces for string instruments are his Sonata for Solo Violin and a Suite for Solo Cello. In addition to the aforementioned, he has written similar pieces for viola, oboe and trombone as soloists.
He has orchestrated a two-piano manuscript of Helen Hagan (1891-1964, the first African-American woman admitted to the Yale School of Music) reconstructing her Piano Concerto in C. As a mark of his great affection for the Dixwell Congregational United Church, he wrote his Dixwell Cantata, whose text is based on various African-American poetry.
His latest orchestral premiere, the piece “Faust” for Orchestra, choir, soprano, vocal trio, dance and percussion ensemble, based on texts by Goethe, Leopardi, G. Mistral and the so-called “epitaph of Seikilos”, was received with great success in Guayaquil, Ecuador, in November 2019. He is completing a collection of 24 impromptus for piano, commissioned by Petra Chong. He is working on his Variations on a theme of Cinema Paradiso by Ennio Morricone. He is also writing a book of virtuosic etudes for piano.
The future
For many years Mo. Anzolini has tried to use music as a force for improvement in the community and in individuals’ lives. As such he conceived the idea of the Music For The Planet Foundation, which aims to start a school of music in the Galapagos Islands, to provide musical education in tandem with classes in mathematics, science, the humanities and ecology. The aim of this programme is to teach Galapagos children how to live in harmony with the modern world – to cherish the unique ecology of their home, but also to become critically thinking global citizens in this time of climate challenges. He observed in his own youth, as a student of both a scientific discipline and music simultaneously, as well as in his time leading various youth orchestras (particularly at MIT), that music can often provide a useful contrast and balance to conventional education that allows young people to learn how to work together to produce a whole that is greater than the sum of the individual parts.
