Roberto Perata was born in 1968 in Savona, a town on the Ligurian Riviera, of a mixed Danish and Italian family. He studied music at the Conservatory in Genova under the guide of Adelchi Amisano and Massimiliano Damerini, graduating in Piano (1990), Organ (1995), Composition (1996), Chorus conducting (1993) and Orchestra Conducting (2004), while also attending University and accomplishing his studies in Law (Genova, 1993) and in Musicology (Venice, 2007). After attending a two-year young artists’ program for repetitors at La Scala in Milan (1994-96), he was hired at the same Opera house as a repetitor (1996), also working for three years as a music assistant to the Artistic Director, M° Paolo Arcà, and the Music Director, M° Riccardo Muti. During this fourteen year working experience at Italy’s most important opera company, he collaborated with such conductors as Mstislav Rostropovich, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Riccardo Chailly, Zoltan Pesko, Christopher Hogwood and singers as Renata Scotto, Galina Vishnevskaja, Renato Bruson, Sherril Milnes, Mignon Dunn. He also worked as a teacher at La Scala’s Young Artists’ Program (2000-2005), while also being called to collaborate with the International Institute of Vocal Arts of New York, organised by musicians of the Metropolitan Opera, in Italy and Israel (1999-2008) and with the Italian program for opera singers AsLiCo (Milan 1995).
He had some of his own compositions performed in Italy, France and the U.S., where he also won the Year 2000 Edition of the international competition New Music Delaware. His Four Newyorkean Pictures, recorded by the Achord Quintet of the Guildhall School, London, have been published on the Music Research Review Suono Sonda. He has also published several musicological essays and booklets for La Scala.
He studied orchestra conducting with Adelchi Amisano and Armando Gatto at La Scala, while also attending courses and masterclasses with Yuri Ahronovitch, Pierangelo Gelmini, Aldo Ceccato and Salvador Mas Conde (Vienna Conservatory). After a long experience as leader of ancient music ensembles and choruses such as the Madrigalisti Ambrosiani, he made his debut as an orchestra conductor with Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in the Concert Hall of the Milan Conservatory in 1997; since then he appeared at the head of several orchestras, such as the Rome Philharmonia, the Pro Arte Marche (orchestra recital with Renato Bruson), the Rumanian Bacau Symphony Orchestra, Brixia Musicalis (a baroque orchestra playing on original instruments), the Orchestra Sinfonica of Novara, the Orchestra sinfonica del Lario, the Ensemble Entr’acte (made by first parts of La Scala’s Orchestra). His repertory goes from the early Renaissance to contemporary music, with a special affection for early baroque works such as Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea (2000), Orfeo (2007), Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (2001), Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (2002, 2003, 2006), Händel’s Giulio Cesare (2003), Lully’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme (with La Scala’s Young Artists’ Program, 2004), Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice (1997, 2004), Carissimi’s Jephte (2000), Gluck’s Don Juan (2006); but he has given countless perfomances of sacred works (Vivaldi, Mozart, Fauré, Franck, Pärt, Poulenc,), classical symphonies (Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven) and 20th century repertory (as Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges) as well. In October 2006 he conducted a very special concert in Milan with La Scala’s firts parts for the commemoration of the Shoah with a program based on works composed in the nazy lagers.
He also holds a teaching position at Genova’s Conservatory in Harmony and Music Analysis, and conducts the orchestra of the Music School of Varese since 2000. Besides having studied Latin (twelve years), Russian, Portuguese, modern Greek, he speaks a fluent English, German, French, Spanish and -of course- Danish and Italian

Upcoming events:

Berlin, March 28, 2010, Spandau Klassik, VoicEnsemble (Artists of Teatro alla Scala)

Varese,  June 5, 13, 20, 2010, Symphonic concert, Orchestra of the Civico Liceo Musicale

Besana in Brianza, Musarte Festival, September 2010, Orchestra del Lario

Padova, September 2010, publication of the book: ”Music Analysis: An Antimethod”

Milano, January 22, 2011, Ravel, L’enfant et les sortilèges, Orchestra Verdi

Montepulciano, Summer 2011, Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte