Roberto Rega

Italian pianist, choral and orchestra conductor Roberto Rega began his piano studies in his native Pescara, where he obtained a piano diploma from the Conservatorio di Musica “Luisa D’Annunzio”.

Between 1991 and 1996, he studied with Victor Merzhanov, professor of piano at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. At the same time, he completed his scientific baccalaureate and went on to study computer science at university, as well as composition at the Pescara Conservatoire in Edgar Alandia’s class.

From the age of twelve, he was a prize winner or finalist in numerous piano competitions and performed as a soloist, in chamber music ensembles and with orchestras in Italy, Poland, Russia, France, Egypt, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

In 1997, he left Italy and was engaged as pianist at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, then at the Opéra de Paris. In 2002, his performance of Chopin’s First Concerto earned him the 1^st Prize for Virtuosity with congratulations from the jury in Dominique Weber’s class at the Conservatoire de Sion (Switzerland). Subsequently, the Société des Arts de Genève awarded him the Jeudis du Piano Audience Prize, and he went on to perform Bach’s 2&3 Part Inventions with the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, touring the opera houses of Geneva, Cairo, Alexandria and Montpellier.

Since 2007, following his vocation, he has devoted himself to choral and orchestral conducting. At the Conservatorio G. Verdi Conservatory in Turin, where he completed a diploma and a master’s degree with distinction in orchestral conducting with Mario Lamberto, as well as a master’s cum laude in composition and choral conducting with Paolo Tonini Bossi and Dario Tabbia. He perfected his opera conducting with Maestro Niels Muus.

Between 2014 and 2015, he was guest conductor at the Rousse State Opera in Bulgaria. There he conducted instrumental, vocal and operatic productions, including Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Verdi’s Rigoletto and Aida. Roberto Rega regularly conducts the major works of the symphonic and choral repertoire by Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms and Fauré, but he is also particularly attached to Renaissance works and composers of our time (Pärt, Lauridsen, Whitacre, Rutter, Palmeri, Jenkins).

In 2018, he founded the Auralis Youth Vocal Ensemble in Geneva, which he will present at the Saint-Pierre en Lumière festival in 2019, the Festival International Jeunes Ballets in 2022, and which has been selected for the Schubertiade in Fribourg in 2022.

Also in 2018, Roberto Rega was appointed director of the Ars Vocalis choir in Lausanne. In 2019, he will conduct Brahms’s German Requiem with the choir on several occasions in Switzerland, France and the Czech Republic. In October 2021, he will conduct the Romande premiere of Karl Jenkins’ The Peacemakers at the Victoria Hall and Lausanne Cathedral, to mark the tenth anniversary of its creation.

In 2019, in a duet with choreographer Gérald Durand, he will conceive and produce an original choral music and dance creation with the participation of the Lausanne Laudate Choir and Geneva’s Jeune Ballet Dance Area.

Roberto Rega regularly holds orchestral and chamber music courses in collaboration with the Young Virtuosi of New York and the University of Braga in Portugal. In Geneva, he has worked as a conductor with the Orchestre Symphonique de l’AMAmusique.

He is currently piano teacher and accompanist with the Maîtrise of the Conservatoire Populaire de Musique, Danse et Théâtre de Genève and the advanced training programme at the Dance Area school in Geneva. His students have won first prizes in competitions.

Conductor of the Laudate Choir in Lausanne and the Choeur des Pays du Mont-Blanc between 2010 and 2021, Roberto Rega currently conducts the Ars Vocalis choir in Lausanne, the Auralis youth vocal ensemble in Geneva and the Si Fa Soul Singers vocal ensemble in Turin. From September 2021, he will be appointed choirmaster of the Claparède and Emilie-Gourd colleges in Geneva.