The Fondazione Paolo Grassi and the 50° Festival della Valle d’Itria di Martina Franca have announced that Fabio Luisi will be awarded the 2024 Premio del Belcanto “Rodolfo Celletti.”

The award will be given to the conductor following the August 2 performance of Bellini’s “Norma.”

The award will be given to Luisi “for the appreciated artistic merits of a luminous career as concertmaster and conductor, for many years among the elite of international orchestra conductors, who saw his first experiences precisely in the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca, in that a hotbed of training in the value and profound meaning of operatic singing and, in particular, of the Italian style of Belcanto, to which Rodolfo Celletti and Alberto Zedda left an indelible and still vital imprint.”

Additinally, “the Award recognizes the merits of a person and an artist who stands out not only for his activity as an interpreter, but also for the training of artists, for the richness, sincerity, and coherence of his abilities, placed at the service of music and art. […] Last but not least, we must remember the merit and profound meaning of his long connection with the Valle d’Itria Festival, ‘where I started and where I always want to return’ to use his own words, which fully testifies to the human as well as artistic generosity towards a Utopia such as that of the Festival and its people which has been perpetuated, also thanks to him, for fifty years now”.

The award was first handed out in 2010 to Mariella Devia and has since recognized such artists as Daniela Dessi, Luciana Serra, Ruggero Raimondi, Ramón Vargas, Michele Pertusi, Richard Bonynge, Joan Sutherland (in memorial), Grace Bumbry, and Alberto Zedda, among others.

Luisi is Music Director of the Festival della Valle d’Itria, Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and Principal Conductor of the Danish National Symphony. He has conducted at every major opera house in the world.