Graziella Contratto
Graziella Contratto represents a new generation of conductors who focus on highly inspired and refreshing concepts in their programs from Renaissance to contemporary music. Surprising references in the choice of her repertory and an openhearted communication towards the audience reflect her important relationship with literature, architecture, dance and film.
In 1998 after a promising career as pianist, chamber musician and teacher for Music history Graziella Contratto is invited by Claudio Abbado to become his musical assistant in the Berlin Philharmony and the Easter Festival in Salzburg.
In 2000 the Orchestre National de Lyon under David Robertson elects Graziella Contratto à l’unanimité as their resident conductor.
In 2003 the Swiss conductor Graziella Contratto becomes the new Artistic Director of the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie in France and thus the first female chief conductor in France.
Her programs and communicative concepts have already been praised by national and international medias. She works regularly with soloists and singers as Anna Larsson, Stefan Genz, Lothar Odinius, Donald Littaker, Raphaël Oleg, Anne Gastinel, Kolja Blacher, Michel Portal, Bruno Ganz, Nicolas Angelich ….
After a promising career as a pianist and chamber musician she decided to start her studies in music theory and conducting at the Musikakademie of Basle, Switzerland. Her teachers were Ralf Weikert, Horst Stein, Manfred Honeck as well as Kirk Trevor, Tsung Yeh and Norma Panula.
During her studies in Basle she had the opportunity to conduct several orchestras before she was selected among 60 candidates to become Chief Conductor of the Academic Orchestra of the University of Freiburg, Germany. Here, G. Contratto performed and recorded late romantic symphonies like Bruckner's Eighth or Mahler's Third. Moreover the orchestra has been on a very successful USA tour in 1997.
G. Contratto conducted the World Premiere of Hans Werner Henze's Knastgesänge at the Opera af Basle (1996). In the same year she also gave her debut at the Lucerne Festival performing compositions by Pierre Boulez on the occasion of Paul Sacher’s 90 th birthday. Several world premières of compositions by e.g. Andrea Scartazzini, Jörg Widmann, Daniel Glet, Suzanne Giraud, Alain Bérlaud, Jean Louis Agobet etc. have been created under G. Contratto's direction.
She taught music history and composition at the Conservatory of Lucerne from 1992 to 1998 when she got the chance to become Claudio Abbado's assistant conductor at the Berlin Philharmony. She assisted for Boris Godunow, Tristan und Isolde and Simone Boccanegra (Salzburg Easter Festival 1998/1999), Cosi fan tutte ( with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Ferrara 2000) as well as for different recordings and World tours with the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra conducted by C. Abbado.
G. Contratto has conducted at the Berliner Festwochen 1999/2000, at the Young Artists Davos Summer-Festival 1999/2000 and in the Gustav Mahler Akademie Bolzano. She has been re-invited to the Manhattan School of Music, New York (2001 and 2003) and to the Northern Hungarian Philharmony Miskolc, to the Orchestra sinfonica Giuseppe Verdi Milan and to the Lucerne Festival. During the EXPO Hannover 2000 she conducted the Bamberger Symphoniker; she has been regularly invited to perform with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. In summer 2000 she replaced Emmanuel Krivine with much success conducting the Orchestre National de Lyon.
In April 2000 the Orchestre National de Lyon ONL selected G. Contratto à l’unanimité to become their resident conductor under the direction of David Robertson. G. Contratto has been awarded Director of the Academy of the Orchestre National de Lyon in order to found different young professional orchestras in the different counties around Lyon – a pioneer project in France.
In 2002 she produced Piazzolla’s Tango-Operita “Maria de Buenos Aires” in Switzerland and directed the Opera-Collage “Olympische Gesänge” in Berlin’s Pergamon-Museum.
She has conducted the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Deutsche Kammerorchester Berlin in the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall, the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss, the Basler Kammerorchester, the Berner Symphonie Orchester, Camerata Schweiz and performed in Gidon Kremer’s Festival “Les Muséiques” in 2005. Invitations to the Orchestre de Picardie and the Orchestra sinfonica di Bari as well as to the Orchestra sinfonica di Bari and the Göttinger Sinfoniker followed.
As a musical consultant Graziella Contratto has cooperated with the film director Bettina Ehrhardt in her documentaries “Kielspur im Meer” about Luigi Nono,“We play”, a portrait of Bobby McFerrin’s friendship with Chick Corea and "wo ich noch nie war" (Helmut Lachenmann).
In January 2006 she conducted Viktor Ullmann's opera "Der Kaiser von Atlantis" (Theresienstadt 1944) in France which has been exceptionally well received in the musical press.
Since 2007, Graziella Contratto is the new artistic director of the Davos Festival - young artists in concert in Switzerland. Her original performing concepts (e.g. a conducting class for children), her choice of programs and the especially well received young composers' workshop with resident composer Wolfgang Rihm led to a remarkable frequentation and an enthousiastic reaction by the audience and the medias.
In spring 2008 Graziella Contratto will conduct a comic-symphonic project with Ursus&Nadeschkin and the camerata Schweiz, an ensemble she artisticly directs since 2004. Next summer she will conduct Verdi's "La Traviata" at the Opera Festival of Avenches, Switzerland .