Marino Formenti’s unusual combination of emotion and intelligence characterizes him as one of the most interesting musicians of our time. Lauded as “Glenn Gould for the 21st century” by the Los Angeles Times he first made a name for himself through his interpretations of contemporary music.

He has appeared at the international festivals of Salzburg, Lucerne, Edinburgh, Schleswig-Holstein, Ravinia and Aspen, as well as the great concert halls of Berlin, Vienna, Paris, London, Zurich, Moscow, Tokyo, Los Angeles and New York among others.

In 2004, he made his début at Lincoln Center in New York where he presented his 3-concert cycle Piano Trips in the Great Performers Series. Other comparable theme-based series were additionally presented in Vienna, Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

Formenti’s orchestra engagements have included performances with the New York Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under the baton of such Maestri as Franz Welser-Möst, Kent Nagano, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Daniel Harding and Gustavo Dudamel among others.
He has further collaborated with a number of great artists, among them Gidon Kremer, Maurizio Pollini and Ulrich Matthes.

In the 2021/22 season, Marino Formenti will perform at the Beethovenfest Bonn in a four-part concert series, as well as at the Wien Modern Festival and at the Vienna Musikverein, among others.

Marino Formenti gained his first conducting experience as an assistant to both Kent Nagano and Sylvain Cambreling. Since then he has led performances at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Konzerthaus Berlin, Festival Wien Modern as well as in Paris, Rome, Milan, Oslo, Ljubljana, Los Angeles, Johannesburg or Tokyo. At Maurizio Pollini’s express invitation, Marino Formenti led concerts with him as soloist at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Salle Pleyel in Paris, and the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome in 2008 and 2009.

He conducted the Austrian premiere of Kurt Weill’s opera “Der Protagonist” and in 2010 led the chamber version of Prokofiev’s “The Fiery Angel,” which was unanimously hailed by the European Press; Marino Formenti further conducted The Party in Los Angeles, Ravenna and Palermo.

Formenti has worked with some of the world’s greatest living composers, among them Friedrich Cerha, Olga Neuwirth, Helmut Lachenmann, Gyorgy Kurtág, and Salvatore Sciarrino.

In 2009 Marino Formenti was awarded the Belmont Prize for contemporary music by the Forberg-Schneider Foundation in Munich.

2021/2022
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