Beatrice Benzi
piano
© Andreas Ikonomu
The Italian pianist Beatrice Benzi qualified for her diploma at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatoire in Milan, where she studied with Bruno Canino and Luigi Zanardi before continuing her studies at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena with Michele Campanella. Her passions are chamber music, Lieder and opera. After winning the La Bottega Teatrale in Treviso competition in the 1990s she joined La Scala Milan in 1991, where she still works as a musical assistant working, down the years, with conductors including Riccardo Muti, Riccardo Chailly, Jeffrey Tate, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Zubin Mehta, Myung Wun Chung and Fabio Luisi. In some productions she accompanied recitatives on the harpsichord on stage - including Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims, Mozart's Così fan tutte and Donizetti's L‘elisir d’amore. She's also involved in La Scala's opera studio - the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala. Tours with La Scala and their philharmonic orchestra have taken her to Moscow, Tokyo, Sydney and Savonlinna. She also worked with Zubin Mehta at the Palau de las Arts in Valencia and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv. She can be heard on recordings with Cecilia Bartoli, Mariella Devia and Luciano Pavarotti. She has also worked for many years as a professor for Italian operatic repertoire in courses run by Dolora Zajick in Nevada and held masterclasses in places including New York, Bologna, Catania and Japan. She has appeared in recital with singers including Gregory Kunde, Chris Merritt, Marcello Giordani and Francesco Gatelli at leading houses including those in Parma, Naples, Geneva and Florence and the Rossini Opera Festival.