Jorge Parodi

Reviewed as having “the most expressive conducting hands since Stokowski’s,” (New York Daily News) Argentinean conductor Jorge Parodi has worked as conductor, coach or repetiteur at several prestigious institutions, including the Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), The Banff Centre (Canada), SIVAM (Mexico), Buenos Aires Lírica, Opera Tampa, Connecticut Grand Opera, Lake George Opera Festival, Hofstra University and New York University. He has collaborated with such artists as Tito Capobianco, Sherrill Milnes, and Rufus Wainwright; and he has assisted conductors of the caliber of Lorin Maazel, Julius Rudel and Grammy-winning Spanish conductor, José de Eusebio.

He made his Canadian debut conducting Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at The Banff Centre, Canada’s most prestigious summer festival; and recently, he made his Argentinean operatic debut conducting Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia with Buenos Aires Lírica, the country’s second largest company. In the last two seasons in the United States, he has conducted repertoire as varied as Orphée aux Enfers (Offenbach), L’elisir d’amore (Donizetti), Don Giovanni (Mozart), Candide (Bernstein), Il Trittico (Puccini) and Alcina (Handel).

Jorge Parodi is the Music Director of the Senior Opera Theater at the Manhattan School of Music, where he has conducted its productions to critical acclaim. Senior Opera Theater produces one opera a year with the Manhattan School senior voice class, accompanied by an orchestra of MSM Orchestral Performance students. The New York Times praised its production of Schubert’s Die Verschworenen as “superbly performed” and said of its United States premiere of Paisiello’s Nina: “the opera played beautifully, with graceful music throughout, sonorous choruses and a radiant finale”. About its latest production -Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers- Opera News praised: ‘the orchestra (was) led with assurance and control by Jorge Parodi.’ Also at Manhattan School of Music, he has led the Graduate Opera Scene Program and conducted a historically informed performance of Cavalli’s La Calisto and Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea at the MSM Summer Voice Festival. This Season he is conducting SOT’s production of Cavalli La Doriclea.

Recently, Maestro Parodi was appointed Artistic Director of Opera Hispánica, the only company in the United Sates focused on the Hispanic vocal repertoire and on the Latino perspective. Last season marked the company’s inaugural Opera Hispánica Festival in which he performed with such artists as Eglise Gutiérrez and Metropolitan Opera star, Isabel Leonard and he conducted OH Festival’s production of Piazzola’s Maria de Buenos Aires at (le) poisson rouge, that the New York Times described as “excellent”.

Mr. Parodi has been a faculty member at The Juilliard School for over a decade and is Vocal Coach of the premier Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division. He spends his summers as a faculty member of Artescenica (Mexico), International Institute of Vocal Arts (Puerto Rico), and of VOICExperience, a vocal workshop under the direction of Sherrill Milnes. He was a long time faculty member of the International Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv, one of the world’s foremost summer opera training programs. With IVAI he taught at the Nagano Opera Master Class (Japan) and at the Inaugural Opera Master Class in conjunction with China National Opera (Beijing). He has offered master classes at the Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Manhattan School of Music (as co-teacher with opera legend Martina Arroyo), and the Escuela Superior de Canto (Madrid).

A prizewinner at the Bienal de Arte of Buenos Aires, Mr. Parodi completed studies in Conducting and Piano Performance at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música of Buenos Aires. He holds a Masters degree in Accompanying and Chamber Music from the University of Michigan as a full-scholarship student of the eminent accompanist, Martin Katz. He participated in the recording of the complete edition of the music for piano by Muzio Clementi with Denon Essentials; and he is featured in recordings for Albany Records and MSR Classics.