The Conductor, Marina Malavasi

Marina Malavasi, founder and conductor of the Iris Ensemble, obtained her diploma in Piano and Choral Music from the Padua Conservatoire and studied Choir conduction under Fosco Corti; she also graduated in Philosophy from the University of Padua and specialised in Musicology with Giulio Cattin.

As a choir conductor, she worked in the theatres of Rovigo and Treviso between 1991 and 2001, participating in first world performances of operas such as Mare Nostro by Lorenzo Ferrero, Una favola per Caso (by Sani e Gregoretti), Peter Schlemihl (by Luca Mosca), Incanto di Natale (by Paolo Furlani) e Animalie (by L.Ronchetti and L. Bianchini).
She was also choir conductor at La Fenice Theatre in Venice on the occasion of the first world performance of the opera Mister Me by Luca Mosca (2004) and at Theatre Malibran (2005) in Cenerentola by Rossini.

At the 2006 Venice Festival she presented the first modern performance of Galuppi's opera Ifigenia in Tauride with the Choir of the seven Conservatoires of Venetia. She was also Choir Master at Donizetti Theatre in Bergamo in the operas Lucia di Lammermoor and Anna Bolena, which also figured in the program for the Japan tour in January 2007; in the 2007 season she appeared again in Bergamo in Elisir d’amore, and in Una piccola Cenerentola in 2008.
In 2006, 2009 and 2010 she participated in the Festival Settimane Internazionali at the Olimpico Theatre in Vicenza in Il Flauto Magico, Il Turco in Italia and Don Pasquale. TAll the operas have been recorded by Fonit Cetra, La Bottega Discantica, MusicaImmagine Records; and the operas by Donizetti are available on DVD (Ed. Dynamic).

M. Malavasi has given concerts since 1984 as the conductor of groups founded by herself: Nuovo Coro Polifonico (until 1999), Ensemble of mixed voices Dodecantus and male choir Speculum Musicae, with whom she has given concerts in Italy, Spain, Belgium, Slovenia, Croatia and Germany and participated in international Festivals (Brezice, St. Blasien, Festival Galuppi).

She has recorded some CDs with first world performances of works of Italian polyphonic music.
Magnificat on Maestri di Cappella in the Duomo church in Treviso; for editor Bongiovanni, Lamentationes Hieremiae di Giovanni Nasco (2001), O stella matutina (2002) dedicated to the laudi of Innocentius Dammonis and, to conclude, Requiem by Costanzo Porta (2003), obtaining the prize of international critics (a mention in the Vivaldi prize in 2001, Record of the month in July 2001 for Alte Musik Aktuell, rated 5 stars in Amadeus in 2001 and 2003, mentions in CD Classics, Fanfare, Boletino Discografico Madrileno).

Her choral activity includes regular collaboration with the symphonic orchestras of Padua, Venice, Varese and Bergamo, with whom she has given numerous concerts dedicated to music by Vivaldi, Albinoni, Cavalli, Galuppi, Monteverdi, Schutz, Mozart, Mayr, Haydn. She conducted the Choir of the Conservatoires of Venetia in the first modern performance of Ifigenia in Tauride by Galuppi (2006, Festival Galuppi in Venice) and of the psalms Dixit Dominus by Vivaldi and Haendel, with the conduction of Christopher Hogwood (2008, Villa Contarini). As the conductor of the Pollini Kammerchor, set up in the Padua Conservatoire, she collaborated in the performances of Ein Deutsches Requiem by Brahms, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Lobgesang by Mendelssohn and a cappella repertoire by Bruckner, Verdi and Rossini in twinning with Bachchor of Freiburg, conducted by Hans Michael Beuerle.