Elisa Citterio is a violinist and specialist in historically informed performance who has performed internationally as a soloist, ensemble leader, and musical director. From 2017 to 2022, she was Musical Director of Tafelmusik in Toronto, where she combined orchestral work with an active career in chamber music. She has collaborated with numerous leading early music ensembles and appears regularly as a guest director and teacher.
Elisa Citterio was born in Brescia, Italy, and grew up in a musical family. She began playing the piano and violin at an early age and, as a teenager, performed baroque sonatas with her mother and sister. At eleven, she began formal violin studies at the L. Marenzio Conservatory in Brescia, where she won numerous national competition prizes and graduated in both violin and viola with highest honours. She continued her postgraduate studies with Franco Gulli, Pavel Vernikov, Corrado Romano, Dora Schwarzberg, Matis Vaitsner, Ilya Grubert, and Dejan Bogdanovich.
In 2000, she was selected as leader and soloist with the orchestra of the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where she received intensive professional training in orchestral and chamber music repertoire as well as violin technique. Shortly afterwards, she specialised in baroque violin, studying with Chiara Banchini at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and with Luigi Mangiocavallo in Rome, and taking part in masterclasses with Enrico Onofri.
She has performed, recorded, and toured internationally—often as ensemble leader, soloist, or principal violinist—with ensembles including Dolce & Tempesta, Europa Galante, Accademia Bizantina, Accordone, Zefiro, La Venexiana, La Risonanza, Ensemble 415, Concerto Italiano, Il Giardino Armonico, I Turchini, La Lira d’Orfeo, Orchestra Academia 1750, and the Balthasar Neumann Choir & Ensemble under Thomas Hengelbrock. From 2004 to 2017, she was a member of the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala in Milan.
Elisa Citterio was Musical Director of Tafelmusik from 2017 to 2022. During this time, she moved from her native Italy to Toronto, where she combined orchestral work with an intensive schedule as a chamber musician. Her arrival in Toronto attracted considerable attention, and in 2019 she was awarded the Leonardo Award for Arts, Science & Culture by the Italian Chamber of Commerce in recognition of her contribution to cultural life in Canada. She has since appeared as a guest director with ensembles including Les Violons du Roy in Québec.
Her discography includes more than 35 recordings with ensembles such as Tafelmusik, I Turchini, Accademia I Filarmonici, Europa Galante, Zefiro, Accordone, Brixia Musicalis, Accademia Bizantina, Il Giardino Armonico, and La Venexiana, as well as opera recordings with the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro alla Scala under conductors including Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Chailly, Edward Gardner, Daniele Gatti, Daniel Harding, Lorin Maazel, and Riccardo Muti.
Elisa Citterio has also been active in teaching and masterclasses. She worked with Stefano Montanari in the Estravagante Ensemble and, from 2014 to 2016, served alongside him as co-director of the baroque violin programme at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milan. She has given masterclasses in Italy, Canada, and Switzerland and has taught baroque violin at conservatories in Udine, Florence, Campobasso, Rovigo, and Ferrara. In 2020, she was invited to give a masterclass at the Juilliard School in New York and subsequently returned to lead the Juilliard Baroque Orchestra. In July 2024, she made her New York debut as a conductor from the violin, directing the Teatro Nuovo historical orchestra, choir, and soloists in an opera by Carolina Uccelli (1835).