Antonio Florio

Antonio Florio (born 1956) is an Italian conductor, musicologist and composer. In 1987, Florio founded the Cappella della Pietà de' Turchini music ensemble, renamed Cappella Neapolitana in 2016.

Biography

Antonio Florio was born in Bari in 1956. He studied at the Conservatory of Bari under Nino Rota, graduating in piano, cello, and composing. After graduation, he moved to Naples and started to teach at the Conservatory. He remained active in studies of ancient instruments and led intensive musicological research, exploring the repertoire of Neapolitan music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and uncovering many neglected works. Among many works, rediscovered by Florio, there are La colomba ferita (1670), Il schiavo di sua moglie (1671) and La Stellidaura vendicante (1674) by Francesco Provenzale, Il disperato innocente by Francesco Boerio (1673), La finta cameriera by Gaetano Latilla (1673), Li Zite’n Galera by Leonardo Vinci (1722), Il Pulcinella vendicato by Giovanni Paisiello (1767), Statira by Francesco Cavalli, Montezuma by Francesco De Majo (1765), and many more.

Important collaborations in Florio's early career include Roberto De Simone (especially La Gatta Cenerentola), and Rinaldo Alessandrini, with whom Florio and Pino De Vittorio interpreted Neapolitan cantatas, an almost forgotten genre at the time.

In 1987, Florio founded the Cappella della Pietà de' Turchini (I Turchini), an ensemble specialized in Neapolitan baroque music.

In 1999 and 2000, Florio conducted the Symphony Orchestra of Santiago de Compostela, presenting La Serva Padrona and Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.

In 2004, he presented his recovery and revision of Leonardo Vinci’s opera seria La Partenope. That year at the Festival di musica antica del Mediterraneo Mousiké di Bari, Florio was honoured with the Premio per la diffusione della Musica Mediterranea award.

Among other endeavors, Antonio Florio curates festival Sicut Sagittae, dedicated to antic Calabrian music.

Awards

2008 – Diapason d’Or award; 2008 – Orphée d’or du disque lyrique; 2008 – Luis Gracia Iberni award; 2008 – Naples city award Premio Napoli for the section Hidden Excellence; 2009 – Oviedo Prize for best theatrical production (La Partenope by Leonardo Vinci).