Gabriele Bellini studied at the Conservatory in his native Veneto and in Milan, with composition under Luigi Coltro, Bruno Maderna and Franco Donatoni and conducting under Franco Ferrara, Hermann Scherchen, Sergiu Celibidache and Hans Swarowsky. He worked for many years with Claudio Abbado at La Scala in Milan and was later artistic director of the Connecticut Grand Opera in Stamford. He has served as guest conductor in opera and in concerts in major European centres, with works such as L’elisir d’amore, Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro, Tosca, Rigoletto, La Bohème, Falstaff and Macbeth. In Wildbad he has conducted several first performances, including Rossini’s Pezzi sacri lughesi and Mayr’s L’accademia di musica. Further evidence of his achievement has been in television and in the recording studio.