Jury Commission

The Gorizia Choral Association C.A. Seghizzi is pleased to introduce the jury of the 19th International Chamber Singing Competition “Seghizzi.”

Direttore artistico e presidente della giuria

Eddi De Nadai

Eddi De Nadai, formerly Maestro Collaborator at the Teatro la Fenice in Venice, Staatsoper in Hannover, Verdi in Trieste, Lyric Experimental in Spoleto, Sociale in Trento, graduated in piano and harpsichord at the Venice Conservatory, studied conducting with Romolo Gessi, Donato Renzetti, Lior Shambadal and Deyan Pavlov.

He was guest conductor at the Izmir Opera House and, from 2009 to 2013, at the Bolshoi Theater in Tashkent. He carries out an intense activity collaborating with prestigious orchestras (Orchestra of Padua and Veneto, City of Ferrara, Mitteleuropa Orchestra, Slovenian Radio and Television, Cordoba Symphony, Orpheus Kammerorchester Wien, Bacau Philharmonic, Odessa Philharmonic, Kiev String’s Orchestra, Albanian Radio and Television, Opera of Belgrade and Ljubljana, Astana Opera) and important soloists such as Bruno Canino, Rocco Filippini, Enrico Pieranunzi, Luciana D’Intino, Katia Ricciarelli, directing a vast symphonic and operatic repertoire in Italy and abroad.

Recently he conducted Nabucco and Aida at the Taormina Opera Stars, Madama Butterfly at the Pucciniano Festival in Torre del Lago, The little sweep by Britten at the Verdi Theater in Pisa, La Cecchina by Piccinni and Maria de Buenos Aires in Piazzolla at the Teatro Comunale in Treviso. He inaugurated MittelFest 2016 in Cividale with the world premiere of Menocchio by R. Miani. He conducted the world premiere of Mauro Montalbetti’s Still Requies at the Milan Triennale and at the Teatro Grande in Brescia.

He is the founder and artistic director of the Orpheus Ensemble, which is dedicated to instrumental literature of the twentieth century.

He is also the creator and artistic director of the project “All Opera, guys! for the dissemination of the contemporary operatic repertoire for children, now in its fourteenth edition: in recent years he has created and directed The New Dress of the Emperor by Paolo Furlani, Arcibaldo Sonivari by Mario Pagotto, The little sweep by Benjamin Britten, La Fuggitiva by Lucio Gregoretti , New Year’s Eve by Renato Miani, The Wizard of Oz by Pierangelo Valtinoni, Christmas Tale by Carlo Galante. Il Vestito nuovo dell’Imperatore di Paolo Furlani, Arcibaldo Sonivari di Mario Pagotto, The little sweep di Benjamin Britten, La Fuggitiva di Lucio Gregoretti, La notte di San Silvestro di Renato Miani, Il Mago di Oz di Pierangelo Valtinoni, Racconto di Natale di Carlo Galante.

Collaborator with internationally renowned singers, he has given concerts for prestigious institutions and important festivals throughout Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, Argentina, Mexico and the United States.

From 2002 to 2010 he was official pianist at the Gorizia International Vocal Chamber Music Competition

He is a teacher at the Milan Conservatory.

Malin Hartelius

Swedish soprano, she gained international fame in the early 1990s. After graduating from the Vienna Conservatory, where her teacher was Margarete Bence, in 1989-1990 she joined the Wiener Staatoper. In the 1991-1992 season, she was engaged by the Zurich Opera House, where she performed the roles of Pamina in “The Magic Flute,” Adele in “Die Fledermaus,” Blonde in “Die Entführung aus dem Serail,” and Ännchen in “Der Freischütz.” She reached the pinnacle of success between 1999 and 2000, portraying the role of Pamina in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” In 2010, she received the medal for Sciences and Arts from the King of Sweden. In July 2011, after her performance in Zurich in “Il re pastore,” she was recognized as one of the best interpreters of Mozart’s operas in the 21st century.

She is globally renowned, particularly as one of the leading interpreters of Mozart’s works, notably at the Zurich Opera House. She has also performed in operas by Tchaikovsky, Cherubini, Donizetti, Handel, Schubert, and collaborated with conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Ivor Bolton, Franz Brüggen, Riccardo Chailly, Ádám Fischer, John Eliot Gardiner, Wolfgang Gönnenwein, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, Ton Koopman, Mark Minkowski, Peter Schreiner, Franz Welser-Möst.

Bernd Valentin

Born in Pirmasens, Germany, baritone Bernd Valentin studied singing with Claudio Nicolai und Klesie Kelly in Cologne. Having won several prizes, he was invited to record for radio and CD. Fixed engagements have taken him from 1995 – 2006 to the Opera Houses in Kiel and Hagen, to the State Opera Hannover and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He has been a freelance singer since then, guest appearances have taken him to the Opera Houses in Bremen, Dortmund, Essen, Düsseldorf, Bonn, Kaiserslautern and the Komische Oper Berlin, to Bern and Basel, to the Volksoper Wien and the Opera House in Innsbruck. His operatic repertoire includes Mozart, italian, french and german operaroles. He has been invited to sing concerts at the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Liederhalle Stuttgart, the Philharmonie am Gasteig München, the Frauenkirche Dresden and has taken part in festivals in Germany (Stuttgart, Berlin, Eutin), Switzerland (Luzern), Austria (Erl), Turkey (Aspendos), Sweden (Stockholm, Uppsala), Spain (La Palma), South Korea (Gwang Ju) and U.S. (Oregon Bach Festival).

Bernd Valentin has been teaching as a professor of voice since 2014 and currently heads the voice department at the University Mozarteum Salzburg.

Christian Carrara

Christian Carrara is considered one of the most original composers of his generation. He primarily writes symphonic and chamber music, as well as works for musical theater and television.

Critics recognize in his work a writing that is “extremely attentive to the balance and delicacy of the harmonic texture” but “great in creative intentions, where the entire context manifests itself solid and clear,” capable of revealing, beyond the curtain of seemingly ‘simple’ music, the troubling question about the disastrous outcomes of what is proclaimed good, that is, what war, every war, entails (Claudio Strinati). “His music is close to the heart, clear but not simple, direct but speaks a language full of mystery: that of poetry” (Elena Formica). His music is performed in prestigious venues, from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome to the Berliner Hall, from the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino to the Auditorium Binyanei Hauma in Jerusalem.

“He is an author who has great ease of writing” (Giorgio Battistelli), and the positive relationship with the audience is well described by American critic Rob Haskins: “I know that I would like to share his music with others and listen to it over and over again.” “Unlike much contemporary music, his crypticism is not in the notation but in the difficulty of organizing and making his compositional thought as clear as possible, a bit like what happens in Verdi’s music, which possesses minimal semiological charge but a very powerful semantic charge” (Flavio Emilio Scogna).

He collaborates with important names in Italian and international music, including John Neschling, Flavio Emilio Scogna, Omer Meir Wellber, Paolo Olmi, Stefano Montanari, Michalis Economou, Jan Latham Koenig, Nir Kabaretti, Lior Shambadal, Alda Caiello, Roberto Abbondanza, Carlo Guaitoli, Roberto Prosseda, Floraleda Sacchi, Francesco D’Orazio, Francesca Dego, Danusha Waskiewicz, Robert De Maine. His works are performed by prestigious ensembles and orchestras, including the Filarmonica Toscanini di Parma, the Orchestra Regionale della Toscana, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Orchestra del Teatro Lirico di Trieste, the Orchestra del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, the Orchestra del Teatro Petruzzelli di Bari, the Filarmonica della Fenice, the Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy, the Qatar Symphony Orchestra, the Berliner Symphoniker, the Slovenian Philarmonic, the Santa Barbara Symphony, the Orchestra de la Unam di Città del Messico, the Orchestra del Teatro Municipal de Sao Paulo, the Ra’anana Symphonet.

He has collaborated with some of the most important names in Italian theater, including Sandro Lombardi, Ugo Pagliai, Sergio Castellitto, Marco Martinelli, Ermanna Montanari, Enzo De Caro, Alessandro Benvenuti. Among his theatrical works, operas such as “La piccola vedetta lombarda,” “Oliver Twist,” “Alto sui pedali,” and “Il giocatore” stand out.

In the symphonic catalog, notable works include “Magnificat. Meditation for pedal piano and orchestra” (commissioned by Emilia Romagna Festival), “Destinazione del sangue,” “Liber Mundi,” “Tales from the underground,” and “Ondanomala” (commissioned by Teatro Lirico di Trieste), and “Vivaldi. In memoriam” (commissioned by Maggio Musicale Fiorentino).

Regarding chamber music, some of his most performed works include “Luce,” “Bianco,” “Ludus,” and the collection of piano pieces “A piano diary.” In August 2015, the premiere of “War Silence” for piano and orchestra (commissioned by the Festival di Ravello) took place, featuring the Orchestra Filarmonica de La Fenice. In January 2016, “Machpela,” a double concerto for violin, cello, and orchestra (produced by the Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra), with Francesca Dego on violin and Robert DeMaine, the principal cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, had a successful premiere in California.

In July 2016, the premiere of “The Waste Land,” a concerto for viola and orchestra commissioned by Mittelfest di Cividale del Friuli, was performed by the Slovenian Philharmonic with violist Danusha Waskiewicz, former principal viola of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

With over 18,000 spectators and 28 performances, in October 2016, the production of “Cenerentola,” a new opera commissioned by the Fondazione Petruzzelli di Bari, came to a close.

In June 2018, “I Am home,” a piece for flute and string orchestra commissioned by Claudio Scimone and conducted by him with I Solisti Veneti, premiered. In January 2020, the premiere of “Luci danzanti nella notte,” a concerto for violin commissioned by the Teatro Municipale di Piacenza and dedicated to the violinist Francesca Dego, took place.

In 2021, there were world premieres of “4 emotions” for flute and string orchestra (commissioned by Emilia Romagna Festival), “O somma luce” for flute and mixed choir (commissioned by the Coro del Friuli Venezia Giulia), “The Devil’s Bridge”

Sara Mingardo

Sara Mingardo is an Italian classical contralto who has had an active international career in concerts and operas since the 1980s. Her complete recording of Anna in Hector Berlioz’s Les Troyens won a Gramophone Award and both the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording and the Grammy Award for Best Classical Album in 2002. Some of the other roles she has performed on stage or on disc include Andronico in Tamerlano, Mistress Quickly in Falstaff, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, and the title roles in Carmen, Giulio Cesare, Riccardo Primo, and Rinaldo. She has also recorded several Vivaldi cantatas, Bach cantatas, and such concert works as Mozart’s Requiem, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, and Vivaldi’s Gloria among others. Born in Venice, Mingardo studied singing with Paolo Ghitti in her native city at the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello di Venezia. She won first prize at the Toti dal Monte international singing competition and the Prize Giulietta Simionato at the 23rd Vienna Competition. She made her professional opera debut in 1987 as Fidalma in Domenico Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto in Avezzano. Her career developed rapidly, and by 1989 she had already made appearances at La Scala, La Fenice, the Salzburg Festival, the Teatro Regio di Torino, and the Teatro di San Carlo among other major theatres. Mingardo has since maintained a busy singing schedule. Her performance credits include appearances at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the Bregenzer Festspiele, Carnegie Hall, the Festival de Beaune, the Festival della Valle d’Itria, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, La Monnaie, the Liceu, the Montreux-Vevey Festival, the Lausanne Opera, the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, the Opéra national de Montpellier, the Santa Fe Opera, the Schwetzingen Festival, the Semperoper, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Teatro Comunale Florence, the Teatro de la Zarzuela, the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari the Teatro Massimo, the Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi, and the Teatro Real among others. She has also sung with many notable orchestras in concert, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra.