Sabrina Avantario

Pianist, Vocal Coach & Language Coach Italian

Sabrina Avantario, italian pianist, vocal coach, language coach, chef de chant at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, has recently moved to Belgium where she often collaborates with the Flemish Opera and is Guest Professor at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp within the singing department. Since this year, she coaches and gives Italian coaching at the International Opera Academy, Ghent.

She’s considered to be an expert in Mozart, Rossini and the Italian repertoire in general.

Her international resume includes working as chief repetiteur in the opera repertoire going from Monteverdi to Menotti for dozens of productions, amongst which fourteen only of Rossini, ten of Verdi and ten of Mozart operas; as continuo player in baroque and early classical productions; as harpsichordist and fortepiano player for the recits; as vocal coach and language expert in Belgium (De Vlaamse Opera of Antwerpen and Gent, De Munt in Brussel), Greece (Greek National Opera, especially called by Graham Vick as Italian coach for Bohème in 2007 and 2008), Switzerland (Luzern and Bern Opera Houses), Ireland (Wexford Festival Opera), Germany (Staats theater Kassel), Japan (Otsu and Tokyo Bunkamura Hall). Her years of extended experience in Italian theaters include having collaborated with Teatro Comunale of Bologna (from 2001 until 2008), such theaters as those of Ravenna, Lugo, Cesena, Modena, Ferrara (especially called to collaborate to Così fan tutte with Claudio Abbado), Piacenza, Reggio Emilia, Lucca, Livorno, Spoleto (Festival dei due mondi), Rossini Opera Festival (since 1995) with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Antonello Allemandi, Paolo Arrivabeni, Francesco Maria Colombo, Ottavio Dantone, Vladimir and Dmitri Jurowsky, Lukas Karytinos, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Julian Reinolds, Alexander Joel, Carlo Rizzi, Alberto Zedda and, among directors, Daniele Abbado, Pier’Alli, Michael Hampe, Mario Martone,

Giancarlo Menotti, Luca Ronconi, Fabio Sparvoli, Gabriele Vacis, Micha Van Hoecke, Graham Vick, etc.

She also collaborated to several vocal masterclasses with Doris Andrews, Yva Barthélémy, Demetrio Colaci, Mietta Sighele and Veriano Luchetti.

Her experience with singers started at the age of 13, preparing the roles and accompanying the voice lessons of the class of her mother, the American soprano and singing teacher Patricia Brown. At age 18 she herself then studied singing with her, so as to have direct experience of vocality. Her relevant interest in the voice found in the collaboration and friendship with the Italian eminent phoniatrician Franco Fussi the chance to expand in the scientific direction. This allowed her to come into contact with many voice specialists, trainers, teachers from all over the world, especially with Yva Barthélémy and her method of vocal gymnastics, which she deepened in recent years.

Her fifteen years of exclusive work in the vocal chamber music field at a very young age (master classes with Liliana Poli, Wolfram Rieger, Irwin Gage, Elly Ameling, etc) has led her to win several chamber music competitions such as Sannicandro Garganico, Palmi, Modena Musica, Vigliano Biellese between 1987 and 1995, performing in numerous recitals (in Italy but also in Germany, Belgium, Lebanon, Russia, Ireland) and recording for the Italian national radio broadcast, which dedicated to her Lieder-duo a special broadcast within the popular program “La barcaccia”.

Being an eclectic personality, from 1990 until 2000 she regularly collaborated for newspapers and musical magazines as music critic. In 2002 she was entrusted by the author of The medium and The telephone , Giancarlo Menotti, to translate into Italian the english libretti. As a journalist she’s often called to give lectures.

As a composer her musical works were performed publicly and recorded.
In the late eighties she founded musical and cultural associations, gaining experience in organizing cultural and musical events.

She has taught experimental music courses and also taught in the Italian conservatories of Cagliari, Como, Modena and Rovigo until 2001. At present she collaborates with the Flemish Opera Educational Department, for which she conceived and performs a project to approach toddlers to opera.

As a soloist she won several national prizes in Italy, played both in recitals and with orchestra (with the Symphonic Orchestra of Sibiu, Romania) and took part in many master classes at the Imola Piano Academy, where she also obtained her master degree (magna cum laude) in Chamber Music in 1995, under the guidance of Pier Narciso Masi.

She studied Piano with Daniel Rivera (obtaining her degree with full marks in 1991), Composition with Gilberto Cappelli (obtaining her short term degree in 1995), Choral music and conducting in the Cesena Conservatory.