Carlo Tenan holds diplomas in conducting, piano, oboe, composition and electronic music and began his career as an assistant on symphonic and opera productions with Sir Antonio Pappano, Mstislav

Carlo Tenan holds diplomas in conducting, piano, oboe, composition and electronic music and began his career as an assistant on symphonic and opera productions with Sir Antonio Pappano, Mstislav Rostropovich and Lorin Maazel. He has conducted orchestras including the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Tokyo Philharmonic, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the Tyrolean Symphony Orchestra Innsbruck. In 2010 he made his debut at the Großes Festspielhaus in Salzburg conducting the New Year’s concert. His operatic successes include Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte, and Puccini’s La bohème and Tosca. Notable concerts and projects include a double engagement at the Konzerthaus Berlin as both conductor and composer, numerous productions at the Auditorio Adela Reta in Montevideo (among them Verdi’s Requiem and Don Giovanni), concerts with Barbara Frittoli and the Tokyo Philharmonic, his debut at the Rossini Opera Festival with Ewa Podleś, several tours with Uri Caine and Paolo Fresu, the Italian premiere of Peter Maxwell Davies’s The Turn of the Tide at Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Madama Butterfly at the Kyoto Opera Festival, his debut at the MITO International Festival and a Decca recording with Juan Diego Flórez. At the Teatro Comunale di Bologna his new productions of Madama Butterfly (2015) and Il barbiere di Siviglia (2016) received wide critical acclaim. In 2017 he became music director of the Wunderkammer Orchestra, a flexible and constantly evolving ensemble that brings together leading musicians from major European orchestras. As a composer he has been a prize-winner at the UnTwelve Composition Competition (Chicago, 2015), a finalist at the Bangor Dylan Thomas Prize for electroacoustic composition (2014), and the recipient of numerous other international awards. His piece 4.0 for brass sextet was performed and recorded by the WonderBrass ensemble, whose members include musicians from the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the principal trumpet of Canadian Brass. Recent highlights include his debut with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, a concert at the Palazzo Reale in Milan for the 25th anniversary of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano “Giuseppe Verdi”, the world premiere of his Kammerkonzert for piano and big band written for the Wunderkammer Orchestra, a return to Montevideo for Verdi’s I vespri siciliani and Holst’s The Planets, further appearances at the Rossini Opera Festival, and the world premiere of Ludovico Einaudi’s opera Winter Journey at Teatro Massimo in Palermo, directed by Roberto Andò with a libretto by Colm Tóibín. In 2023 Carlo Tenan was appointed Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra. He enjoyed great success in his first season with the ensemble thanks to imaginative programming and collaborations with renowned guest artists including Vadim Repin, Fatma Said, Marlis Petersen, Joyce DiDonato and Jonathan Tetelman, culminating in a gala concert with Plácido Domingo before an audience of more than 5,000. In the 2024/25 season he has conducted numerous concerts with the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, including a tour of the United Kingdom with soloist Pablo Ferrández, and has released his first CD with the orchestra, featuring works by Janáček, Kodály, Enescu, Martinů and Bartók, which has received outstanding reviews. Other recent highlights include performances of Rossini’s Stabat Mater and Petite messe solennelle with the Slovak Philharmonic Choir. The new season opens with an invitation to the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival with the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra and pianist Fazıl Say.