Marco Parisotto

Biography

Marco Parisotto was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. A frequent guest with orchestras around the globe, he is one of Canada's foremost and distinguished conductors on the international scene. He has been Music Director of the Ontario Philharmonic in Canada since 1996 and is credited with building this orchestra to the high standard it enjoys today. Following a special concert celebrating Canada-China relations in 1999 at the Grand Theatre in Shanghai, he was appointed Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, a position he held until 2003. As such, in that period he was the first foreign national to have held a leading position in the history of the People’s Republic of China.

Marco Parisotto has appeared in major concert halls throughout the world, conducting many leading orchestras including, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia of London, New Jersey Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa, Quebec Symphony, Toledo Symphony, Victoria Symphony, Symphony Nova Scotia, Louisiana Philharmonic, Osaka Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Japan Shinsei Symphony, Opera G. Verdi di Trieste, Belgrade Philharmonic, Georges Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest, Janáček Philharmonic, Moravian Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Opéra de Bordeaux, Opéra de Marseille, Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Philharmonique de Liège, Orchestre Lamoureux at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. He was received with great enthusiasm at the international festivals of Evian, Menton, Besançon and Skaneateles Festival New York; at the Montreal Opera and Shanghai Opera; in Mexico with the Mexico City Philharmonic, Orquesta Filarmonica de la UNAM, Sinfonica Carlos Chavez, Camara de Bellas Artes; in China with the Shanghai Symphony and China National Symphony. He has also led to acclaim the Polish National Radio Symphony, Monte-Carlo Philharmonic, Orchestra Nazionale della RAI of Torino, Orquesta de Cordoba, Orquesta de Baja California, Orchestre régional Bayonne-Côte basque and the Serbian National Theatre.

Marco Parisotto is the winner of no fewer than seven major international competitions. He crowned these achievements in 1997 with the Besançon International Competition for Conductors, joining the ranks of conductors like Seiji Ozawa, Michel Plasson or Zdenek Macal. A first in this elite event's history, he was awarded the Grand Prix as well as the Prix du Public. Other top prizes have included the Tokyo International Conductors' Competition in Japan, Constantin Silvestri Competition in Romania and the Antonio Pedrotti in Italy - he was moreover conferred with all other special awards at these events.

Marco Parisotto has won critical and public praise for his interpretations of Russian masters as Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Stravinsky; and of the great Germanic repertoire as Strauss, Bruckner, Mahler, Wagner; and of Italian opera. In 2002 he gave the Shanghai premiere performances of Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben and Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances. Acclaimed for his passionate performances in the operatic field he has led productions of Pagliacci, Cavalleria Rusticana, Otello, Tosca, Boheme, Aida, Rigoletto and Don Giovanni.

He took his training both as a violinist (under Mauricio Fuks) and pianist (under Karl Steiner) and studied conducting with eminent maestros including Leonard Bernstein, Carlo Maria Giulini, Leonard Slatkin, Charles Brück, Georg Tintner and, initially, with Raffi Armenian at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec in Montreal. As well, he studied under Swiss conductor/composer Michel Tabachnik whose assistant he became in his early career.