Umberto Clerici conducts Pinnacle: Respighi & Rachmaninov.

After a career spanning more than 20 years as a gifted cello soloist and orchestral musician, Umberto Clerici has consolidated his diverse artist achievements to rapid acclaim as a conductor. Umberto is now the Chief Conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.

Umberto began his career as a virtuoso cellist making his solo debut at the age of 17 performing Haydn’s D Major cello concerto in Japan.  After years of performing on the stages of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, Umberto took up the position as Principal cello of the Teatro Regio di Torino following which he was Principal Cello of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2021.

It was in Sydney in 2018 that Umberto made his conducting debut with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.  Following a swift trajectory of prestigious conducting engagements, Umberto is now in high demand with the all the major symphony orchestras of Australia and New Zealand.

In addition to his first season as Chief Conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Umberto's 2023 conducting engagements include returns to the podiums of the Sydney, Melbourne and West Australian Symphony Orchestras and his debut with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.  Having conducted each of the New Zealand and Dunedin Symphony Orchestras in 2022, Umberto will debut with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra this year. He will also undertake his first collaboration with Opera Queensland, for Verdi's Macbeth.  

Upcoming European conducting engagements in early 2024 include Elgar’s cello concerto with Steven Isserlis for the Volksoper Vienna and debuts with the Orchestra del Teatro Massimo in Palermo and the Orchestra Regionale Toscana.

As a cellist, Umberto is beloved by audiences worldwide, having performed internationally as a soloist at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Vienna’s Musicverein, the great Shostakovich Hall of St Petersburg, Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, the Salzburg Festival and is one of only two Italians to have ever won a prize for cello in the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition.

Umberto plays cellos by Matteo Goffriller (made in 1722, Venezia) and Carlo Antonio Testore (made in 1758, Milano).