37 Biographies Paolo Bellocci, since 1988 Maestro collaborator of the Opera of Florence - Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Artistic Director and Vice President of Opera Network Firenze, within which he carries out advanced training projects and high quality opera productions. He is an expert connoisseur of the singing repertoire of the Italian Opera. For many years he was Coordinator of Maggio Fiorentino Formazione and of the Puccini Festival Foundation of Torre del Lago Puccini. He holds Masterclasses in repertoire, interpretation and vocality of Italian Opera for Academies, Universities and International Music Conservatories, including that of St. Petersburg (Russian Federation), and i n China the Beijing Opera Academy, the University of Shijiazhuang, the Chongqing Conservatory of Music , the Sichuan Normal University of Chengdu, the Zigong Conservatory. Collaborate on special projects for young artists, including Young Artists Project, North Carolina University, Connecticut Lyric Opera (USA), Inner Mongolia University, Huhhot, Xilin Gol League University (Inner Mongolia). For the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino theater he participated in the main tours of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, including those in Beijing, for "Turandot" (Zubin Mehta, Zhang Yimou) in the Forbidden City (1998), Tokjio and Yokohama (Bunka Kaikan, NBC, 2001, 2006, 2011), Recklinghausen, Muscat (Oman), numerous others. Musical organizer and relationship weaver, here some events that he contributed to conceived and created: Concerts at the Festival of Palaces of St. Petersburg (Marijnskj Palace, Kovatchina, Tsarskoe Zelo Palace), Hermitage Museum, for the exhibition "Michelangelo at the Hermitage", Theater "Novaia Opera" in Moscow, in the Sala Paolo VI in the Vatican, with the orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, conductor Zubin Mehta. Concert for the Unicef World Foundation, with the UN headquarters in New York.

"I have a dream – to share love and peace with the world through choral music." •President, World Youth and Children Choral Artists' Association •Artistic Director & President of the Organising Committee, World Choir Festival and World Youth & Children's Choir Festival – Hong Kong •Member, China Musicians' Association •Former First Vice-President, International Federation for Choral Music (IFCM) •Visiting Professor, Kunming City College •Distinguished Professor, Xihua University •Visiting Professor, Tianjin University, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanxi Normal University, Sichuan University of Media and Communications •Recipient of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council's "Award for Arts Achievement" (2007) •Founder and President, Hong Kong Treble Choirs' Association •Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, Hong Kong Treble Choir •Former Music Director and Principal Conductor, Hong Kong Children's Choir •Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, Guangzhou Children's Palace Choir Founder and President of World Youth and Children Choral Artists' Association (WYCCAA), Former First Vice-President of International Federation for Choral Music (IFCM), Prof. Leon Shiu-wai Tong is an internationally renowned choral expert, conductor, speaker, juror, and curator of world-class choral festivals. Currently the Artistic Director of Guangzhou Children's Palace Choir, China, Tong was former Music Director & Principal conductor of the Hong Kong Children's Choir (-1997) and Artistic Director & Principal Conductor of the Hong Kong Treble Choir (-2020). As President and Chairman of the Artistic Committee, Tong has organized many global events with WYCCAA, including the 2024 World Youth & Children's Choir Festival cum 1st Greater Bay Area Choir Festival – Hong Kong, World Choir Festivals (2023, 2022, 2021), 2019 World Choral Conducting Competition, World Youth & Children's Choir Festival – Hong Kong (2019, 2017 & 2015), 2018 Belt & Road World Choir Festival, and the Hong Kong International Youth & Children's Choir Festivals (2013, 2011, 2008 & 2006). In 2008, he curated with the Olympic Committee of Hong Kong "The World Sings for Olympics" concert, in which the international film-star Jackie Chan and World Youth Choir (whose choristers came from over 36 countries and regions) were invited to perform. Respectively in 1998 & 2001, with the Hong Kong Treble Choir Association, he organised the 1st and 2nd "China International Children's Choir Festival & World Symposium for Children's Choral Music", which were followed by the World Children's Choir Festival and the world-renowned Songbridge Programme in 2005. He is also frequently invited to adjudicate at internationally acclaimed choral festivals and competitions, including competitions under the European Grand Prix for Choral Singing Association. He was the only foreign juror at the 67th NHK All- Japan School Choir Competition. As an expert who currently holds several guest professorships in a number of universities in China, Tong has received a number of awards for his contribution to choral music nationally and internationally, including the China Treble Choir Contribution Award in 2004 (from China Chorus Association) and the Award for Arts Achievement (Music) in 2007 (from Hong Kong Arts Development Council).

Graham Lea-Cox has had a broad and eclectic international career as Orchestral Conductor, Artistic Director and as an academic. He has a special interest in the orchestral repertoires of the 18th to 20th centuries, in contemporary global repertoires and is also active as a conductor in theatre and film music. With a strong connection to Africa and Latin America, in particular South Africa and Mexico, his interest in global cultures and personal international initiatives have developed from a profound belief in the power of music to promote peace and build bridges between nations and peoples. Early in his career Graham Lea-Cox gained wide experience on stage and in performance, on tour and in concert throughout the USA (Columbia Artists, New York), China and Japan. After beginning his musical training as a Chorister in the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford (UK), he completed his formal studies at the Royal College of Music (London) and at Oxford University (UK). He later studied with legendary conductors Norman Del Mar (London) and Herbert Blomstedt (Los Angeles) and trained as a repetiteur at the English National Opera. Early professional experience as an assistant to several leading international conductors followed, including Arnold Östman, Harmut Haenchen, Sir Charles Mackerras and Mexican conductor, Eduardo Mata. He has since conducted such ensembles as the West German Radio Symphony Orchestra (WDRSO Köln), leading UK period instrument orchestra the Hanover Band, the Goteborg Opera (Sweden) and the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra (South Africa). His landmark recordings on ASV/Universal with the Hanover Band have received outstanding international acclaim and a nomination for a Classical Grammy Award in the USA. Over many years Graham has been a Visiting Lecturer and Director at Universities, Music Conservatoires and Choral programmes in South Africa, the USA and Mexico. He has lectured in film music at AFDA, the South African School of Drama and Film and as a Visiting Lecturer in Film music at UNISA, the University of South Africa. Graham has been a British Council Artist to Zimbabwe, Sweden and the Czech Republic.

Graduated in Violin with M° Luigi Gamberini, she has an intense concertistic activity both as soloist and as member of chamber groups. She has acquired a 40 years' experience in teaching music to children in public schools as well as in private institutions. In 2001, she leaves the public school and she founded the children's choir "Piccolo Coro Melograno", which she has conducted in more than 500 concerts across Italy. In 2009, the choir evolves into a School for choral music that, nowadays, involves three different choirs with more than 90 participants overall, aged 4-25. She has attended masterclasses with Paul Phoenix, Basilio Astulez, Tullio Visioli, Panda Von Proosdij, Cristina Ganzerla, Luigi Leo, Sabrina Simoni, Siro Merlo. She has collaborated with several authors of children music such as: Beppe Dati, Siro Merlo, Giuseppe De Rosa, Gianfranco Fasano, Gianfranco Grottoli, Maria Francesca Polli. She has been member of the National Panel to select the original songs for "Zecchino d'Oro", an international competition for children songs, broadcasted on the National TV channel RAIUNO. She has been part of the Jury at International pop music contests as well as at National Choir competitions. With Piccolo Coro Melograno, she has participated in many National choir competitions, in which her choir received many prizes, including several Winners Prize and one Best Director Prize. With Piccolo Coro Melograno, she has also collaborated with Gabriel Garrido and with Ensemble Elyma, as well as with Italian comedians Giorgio Panariello and Daniela Morozzi and directed Piccolo Coro Melograno in front of the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella.

Soprano, she graduated in Singing and Vocal Chamber Music at the L. Cherubini in Florence. She perfected her skills with Daniel Ferro, Anastasia Tomaszeswka in the operatic repertoire, with Dalton Baldwin, Liliana Poli, Julia Hamari in the lieder and contemporary repertoire, with Jill Feldman in the baroque repertoire. As a soloist and in chamber ensembles, she is a guest of concert seasons and festivals in Italy and abroad (Amici della Musica of Modena, Florence, Ravenna- Festival, G.A.M.O. of Florence, IUC of Rome, Sinfonia en Perigord Francia etc.). She collaborates with various ensembles: Arte-Musica (Gesualdo da Venosa, IV book of madrigals), Cappella Artemisia of Bologna (C. Margherita Cozzolani, Vespri), A. Seivoci, Francia, (C. Monteverdi, Moral and Spiritual Forest). She plays roles in Orfeo by Monteverdi (Ravenna, Teatro Alighieri), Dido and Aeneas by Purcell (Florence, Palazzo Vecchio), Erminia sul Giordano by Michelangelo Rossi (Teatro di Pistoia), in Luciano Berio's Folksongs in stage form (Parma Teatro Studio), in La Bohème (Rome). She obtained the third prize in the Valentino Bucchi competition "Il canto nel '900" (Rome 1996). You have recorded for the Dynamic, Tactus, Edipan and Esperia record labels. She is a singing teacher at the Conservatory, L. Cherubini in Florence.

Leonardo De Lisi is known as one of the most active interpreters of the chamber vocal repertoire in Italy, for a career now lasting forty years in this field at an international level, preceded by studies under the guidance of the masters Gérard Souzay, Dalton Baldwin, Elly Ameling, Jessye Norman and Irwin Gage and started by winning some prestigious competitions, such as the Conegliano Veneto Competition 1986, the Hugo Wolf of Stuttgart 1987, the Grand Prix Ravel of Saint-Jean-de-Luz 1987, the Walter Gruner of London 1989, the Special Prize A. Roussel for the interpretation of the German Lied and French Melody at the International Competition of the Opéra of Nantes 1989, the Seghizzi Competition of Gorizia 1994, up to the Grand Prize of the Lied at the International Competition of 's-Hertogenbosch, Holland, in 1995. 1994. In 1996, soprano Elly Ameling invited Leonardo De Lisi to perform with her in her farewell concert at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, as her best student and with piano accompaniment by Dalton Baldwin. Among his numerous CDs, the complete art songs of Ottorino Respighi for Channel Classics, the sincle CD's dedicated to Francesco Cilèa (Bongiovanni), Alfredo Piatti and Luigi Denza for voice, cello and piano (Hungaroton), Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco (Vocalia), the Lieder for voice and guitar of Franz Schubert (Dynamic), the cantata "Werther" for tenor and orchestra by Felice Blangini (Nuova Era), the lyrics for voice, double bass and piano by Bottesini (NBB-records), the tenor soloist in Handel's "Messiah" (Bongiovanni), two recordings of "Il Giustno" by Antonio Vivaldi (EMI-Virgin and Bongiovanni), the title roles in "Bajazet" by Gasparini for Glossa, in "L'Orfeo" and "Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria" by Monteverdi for Bongiovanni. In 2009, EMI International included a Vivaldi piece performed by De Lisi in the box set "100 Best Tenor Voices". He has sung a vast symphonic-vocal repertoire (Mahler "Das Lied von der Erde", Britten "Les Illuminations" and "Serenade for tenor, French horn and strings", Ghedini "Concerto funebre per Duccio Galimberti", Respighi "Laudi per la Natività di Nostro Signore" and "Deità Silvane", Haydn "Stabat Mater" and "La Creazione", Mozart "Requiem" and "Davidde Penitente", Beethoven "IX Symphony" and "Missa Solemnis", Schubert "Mass in E flat", Schumann "The Pilgrimage of the Rose", Bach "Johannes-Passion" (Evangelista), "Magnificat" and "Christmas Oratorio" (Evangelista and arias), Mozart's Concert arias for tenor and orchestra, Mendelssohn "Paulus", Bruckner "Te Deum") under the baton of internationally renown conductors. such as Bruno Bartoletti, Georges Prêtre, Pietro Rigacci, Piero Bellugi, Tom Koopman, Edo de Waart, Federico Bardazzi, Luca Pfaff, Sandro Gorla, Michel Plasson, Alistar Dowes, Marco Guidarini, Bruno Aprea. He made his operatic debut at a very young age: in 1987, at just 21 years old, he sang in Rossin's "La cambiale di matrimonio"; (Slook) in Conegliano Veneto and then in Wolf-Ferrari's "Il Segreto di Susanna" at the Teatro Verdi in Padua (conducted by Iris Adami Corradetti). In 1988, he changed range from baritone to tenor under the direction of Ileana Cotrubas and Claudio Desderi: in 1990, at the Itria Valley Festival in Martina Franca, he made his tenor debut in a small part in Mercadante's;Il Bravo" and in numerous opera concerts with orchestra. In 1991 at the Aldeburgh Festival (UK) he played the part of the principal tenor (Alessandro) in Mozart's "Il Re Pastore" (directed by Ileana Cotrubas and conducted by Tamas Vásáry). From 1991 to 1995 he was a tenor in the company of the Opéra de Nice (France), both as a first or second cast of some roles from the Mozart repertoire (Ottavio, Arbace, Aufidio, Ferrando, Marzio, Tamino, Fracasso, Podestà Don Anchise) and from the Italian or French Baroque (in Handel's; "Tamerlano", in M.A. Charpentier;s "Judith", in J.B.Lully's "Armide"), together with some opera productions (in Der Fledermaus as Alfred, La belle Hélène as Oreste and La Périchole, as Piquillo); but above all many supporting roles ranging from Rossini and Verdi to Wagner and R. Strauss. Since 1995 he has devoted to an exclusively freelance career, in which he has interpreted the main Monteverdi roles (Orfeo, Eurimaco, Eumete, Ulisse, Nerone, Apollo, Lucano), many roles from the 17th and 18th century Italian repertoire (Cavalli, Vivaldi, Albinoni, Gasparini, Leo, Scarlab, Haendel, Haydn) and some tenor roles from the standard Italian repertoire, such as Nemorino in "Elisir d'Amore", Peppe in "Pagliacci", Prunier in "La Rondine" (recorded live by Kicco- records) and Pang in "Turandot", both in Italy and abroad (France, Switzerland, Brazil, Argentina, Netherlands, Great Britain, Portugal, Greece). He also distinguished himself as a very eclectic interpreter both vocally and scenically in the modern and contemporary repertoire: Honegger's;s "Les Aventures du Roi Pausole" (Nice, Montpellier, Avignon), in Britten's "Peter Grimes" (Bob Boles) and in "the Rape of Lucretia" (Male Chorus) (Modena, Vichy, Brno), Bruno Maderna's "Satyricon" (Trimalchio) in various productions between 2004 and 2018 (Cividale, Trieste, Pisa, Lucca, Livorno, Ljubljana, Lugano), the first performance of Luca Francesconi; "Gesualdo" in Amsterdam with revivals at the Venice Biennale and at MI.TO. in 2008, the creation of Claudio Ambrosini's ;Big Bang Circus" at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and the Teatro San Carlo in Naples (2006), as well as numerous other premieres of works by Bruno De Franceschi, Carlo Galante, Luca Mosca, and Flavio Colusso. He graduated in Singing from the Conservatory of Padua (1988), in Vocal Chamber Music from the Conservatory of Parma (1994), and also studied at the Zurich Academy of Music (1989–1991) and Languages and Literature at the University of Padua (1985–1990). He has taught Vocal Chamber Music since 1998 at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence and serves on the juries of international competitions, such as the Elsa Respighi Competition in Verona.