(Credit: Tony Hitchcock)

On July 20, 2023, Gianandrea Noseda will receive the Puccini Award in the city where the composer is buried.

The conductor will receive the recognition as he concludes a tour with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia at the Puccini Festival.

Noseda will join an illustrious group of artists recognized for their work perpetuating the legacy of Puccini, dating back to the Award’s founding in 1971. Previous winners include Renata Tebaldi, Maria Callas (in memoriam), Mirella Freni, Birgit Nilsson, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Renata Scotto, Grace Bumbry, Lorin Mazel, Luciano Pavarotti, Riccardo Chailly, Jonas Kaufmann, and Angela Gheorghiu.

In a statement, Noseda said, “Puccini has always fascinated me for his unique ability to take the opera form from the great tradition of the 19th century to the modernity of the 20th century with amazing cultural curiosity and wisdom. His quality as a composer of incredible talent can be immediately detected zooming in and out from masterworks like Manon Lescaut and Il Trittico: works very different from each other that mark the passage, without tears, from late-romantic feeling to full twentieth-century modernity.”

Throughout his career, Noseda has conducted many of Puccini’s operas including “Manon Lescaut,” “La Bohème,” “Tosca,” “Il Trittico,” and “Turandot.”

The Italian conductor is currently the Music Director of the Zurich Opera and the National Symphony Orchestra.