Pasquale Laurino

Title

Conductor, Baton 3

Pasquale has been named associate conductor for the Milwaukee Ballet for the 2009-10 season and regularly conducts their productions of the Nutcracker. Other guest conducting work has been with the Marion Philharmonic and Racine Symphony.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Pasquale was trained as a violinist and conductor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Indiana University where his principal teachers were Thomas Moore and Franco Gulli. Pasquale began his professional career in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he has appeared regularly with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and as concertmaster of the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, the Skylight Opera Theatre, the Bel Canto Chamber Orchestra and several community ensembles. While serving as concertmaster of the Milwaukee Opera Company, he was first approached to conduct, on short notice, his first opera, I Pagliacci. Pasquale received high praise for his control and poise from colleagues who then invited him to conduct the popular Music Under the Stars series.

Long committed to string pedagogy, he has been on the faculty of Carroll University, the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, and the UW-Fox Valley as conductor, violin/viola teacher and as a chamber music coach. He is also on the faculty of the Rocky Ridge Music Festival as conductor and violinist.

Pasquale resides in Chicago where he is often a guest conductor with L'Opera Piccola and Light Opera Works.  He plays baroque violin in Ars Antiqua and Haydn on the Lake. He is a former member of L'Ensemble Portique. Pasquale serves as concertmaster for the Northwest Indiana Symphony, DuPage Opera and the Chicago Chamber Orchestra.

Pasquale served as the artistic director for five years of the chamber orchestra Sinfonia Concertante. He was conductor and artistic director of the Concord Chamber Orchestra from 1987-92. Pasquale's artistic home for over two decades has been the Skylight Opera Theatre where he has conducted La Cenerentola, I Barbiere di Siviglia, Don Pasquale, The Abduction from the Seraglio and Lucia di Lammermoor, La Boheme and the King and I. In 2002, the Copland opera The Tender Land appeared on PBS with Maestro Pasquale conducting and providing commentary. In 2004 he conducted the premiere production of Rachel Portman's The Little Prince directed by Francesca Zambello. He returned to the Skylight to conduct the 50th anniversary celebration with The Barber of Seville in the fall on '09.

Pasquale has participated in a number of festivals in Europe and the States including the Macerata Opera and Festivale della Valle d'Itria in Italy and the Gent Opera Festival in Belgium.