In this episode of Inside Opera, conductor Daniela Candillari discusses her wide-reaching musical career that spans continents and genres. Candillari was raised under the inspiration of her opera-singing grandmother and dove headfirst into her classical piano studies in modern-day Serbia. Little did she know that she would soon study jazz in the far-off town of Bloomington, Indiana or become a renown contemporary opera conductor in New York City. Didn’t think she could get any more interesting? Wait until you hear how many languages she speaks!
Show notes
The Prototype Festival is a contemporary opera festival in New York City
The New Opera Showcase is a contemporary opera showcase sponsored by Opera America and Trinity Wall Street Cathedral
Candillari studied piano in Graz, Austria
Olivier Messiaen is a 20th-century French composer
Candillari’s grandmother performed the titular role in Georges Bizet’s Carmen at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad, former Yugoslavia. Candillari was also born in this city, which is the second-largest city in present-day Serbia.
La Traviata is a grand opera by Giuseppe Verdi
Candillari studied jazz at Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN
A Hochschule is an institution of higher education within German-speaking countries
At age six, she became “obsessed” with the operetta Die Csárdásfürstin by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán
Franz Lehár’s operetta The Merry Widow takes place in the fictional state of Pontevedro, a thinly veiled reference to the real-life principality of Montenegro.
David Baker was the Director of Jazz Studies at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music
Evans references a concert he saw at Symphony Hall Boston with jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton & Handel and Hayden Society
Carnegie Hall (New York) and Wigmore Hall (London) are two well-known classical music venues
Candillari became the Head Coach at the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor, Slovenia
Così fan tutte is an opera buffa (a kind of comedic opera) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Recitative is a musical style primarily used in baroque and classical vocal music (namely opera and oratorio) that highlights narrative storytelling.
Candillari’s husband, Nick Schwartz, is the bass trombonist of the New York City Ballet.
Rusalka is an opera by Antonín Dvořák and was programmed as part of Cincinnati Opera’s 2020 season. Evans also references his Symphony No. 7 which was inspired by composer Johannes Brahms.
Contemporary opera Fellow Travelers by Gregory Spears references the music of French troubadours of the Middle Ages
Musical Composition: Craft and Art is a book by Alan Belkin
Mind Over Finger is a podcast about music performance.
W1A is a British comedy TV show
Arthur Rubinstein once famously noted, “Don’t practice too much.”
Seth MacFarlane, the creator of the adult animated TV series Family Guy, is also a jazz singer.