Vittorio Ghielmi

Univ.-Prof. of Viola da Gamba⋅Department Early Music

The Milan-born viol player, conductor and composer Vittorio Ghielmi — long-standing Professor of Viola da Gamba and Head of Early Music at the Mozarteum University Salzburg — has been compared to Jascha Heifetz for his virtuosity and described as a “shaman of sound” for his distinctive musical vision. A highly respected scholar and pedagogue as well as a performer, he has shaped generations of musicians through his work at the Mozarteum. At the heart of his artistic approach lies il suonar parlante — “the speaking sound” — a renewed and deeply expressive understanding of early repertoire.

The Milan-born viol player, conductor and composer Vittorio Ghielmi is internationally recognised as one of the leading figures in early music. His work is rooted in the concept of il suonar parlante — “the speaking sound” — which reimagines the expressive language of historical repertoire while opening it to new influences and contexts.

Ghielmi is Head of the Department of Early Music and Professor of Viola da Gamba at the Mozarteum University Salzburg, and serves as a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music. In 2007, he founded the Il Suonar Parlante Orchestra with Argentine singer Graciela Gibelli; the ensemble has since appeared in major concert halls worldwide. He regularly performs as a soloist and conductor with leading ensembles, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico and the Freiburger Barockorchester, and appears in duo recitals with his brother Lorenzo Ghielmi and the lutenist Luca Pianca.

He has been involved in numerous contemporary premieres, including works by Kevin Volans and Uri Caine, performing at venues such as the Berlin Philharmonie, the Concertgebouw and the Musikverein. A prominent figure in the early music world, he has shared the stage with artists including Gustav Leonhardt, Cecilia Bartoli, Viktoria Mullova, András Schiff and Thomas Quasthoff, as well as jazz musicians such as Kenny Wheeler and Paolo Fresu.

For three years, he worked as assistant to Riccardo Muti at the Salzburg Festival. He has been artist-in-residence at major festivals including Cuenca, Musikfest Stuttgart, Segovia and Bozar Brussels, and has undertaken large-scale projects such as a complete live performance of Forqueray’s works in Ghent. In 2018, he conducted Rameau’s Pygmalion at the Drottningholm Palace Theatre; in 2020, he made his Toronto debut with Dreaming Jupiter, a project exploring the dialogue between soloist and orchestra.

A long-standing collaboration with the luthier Luc Breton has shaped Ghielmi’s approach to instrument-making, performance and pedagogy, reviving techniques largely lost in modern training. An internationally respected teacher, he has published a widely used method for viola da gamba and given masterclasses at institutions such as the Juilliard School, the Accademia Chigiana in Siena and the Berlin University of the Arts.

He holds a PhD from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart (Milan) and combines performance with musicological research. He has received the Erwin Bodky Award for his work on living musical traditions, and his recordings have earned numerous international distinctions, including the Echo Klassik Prize for The Passion of Music (with Dorothee Oberlinger). Recent releases include Gypsy Baroque (with the Moldovan musicians Marcel Comendant and Stanislav Palúch) and Le Secret de Mr. Marais, both on the Alpha label (Outhere Music, Paris). He is also active in music publishing, with editions issued by Fuzeau, Minkoff and Libroforte.