Joseph Rescigno

Joseph Rescigno (born October 8, 1945) is an American conductor best known for his work in opera in North America and Europe. Since 1981, he has served as Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor of the Florentine Opera Company of Milwaukee, WI. He also served as Artistic Director of l'Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, in Quebec, Canada, for four seasons. His commitment to young musicians and singers returns him each year to La Musica Lirica, a summer program for singers in Northern Italy, where he has been Music Director since 2005.^,  In addition, he serves on the advisory committee of the Olga Forrai Foundation, which supports the training, education, and career development of singers and conductors. And he and the Florentine Opera Company have been chosen to mentor Solti Foundation U.S. Award recipients as part of the Foundation's residency project (newly expanded to opera) since the 2014–2015 season.

Born October 8, 1945 in Flushing, Queens, Rescigno is the eldest of three siblings. His father, also Joseph Rescigno, was a medical doctor, and his mother, Leona Reese Llewellyn, was a singer who met her future husband while playing piano rehearsals for his brother, Nicola Rescigno.^, , 

Maestro Joseph Rescigno's first music teachers were his mother and his paternal grandfather, Joseph Rescigno, who played trumpet for the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera as well as elsewhere in New York for several decades before World War II. So Maestro Joseph Rescigno was immersed in the language and culture of musicians from the day he was born. He counts about 10 musicians in the extended Rescigno clan, mostly in his grandfather's generation. The result was that he was sight-singing as a toddler.^, 

While never his nephew's teacher in a formal sense, Nicola Rescigno was a significant influence and mentor. Being able to attend his uncle's rehearsals and performances in Chicago furthered the younger musician's education. It was there, in 1955, that he first watched the complex undertaking of assembling an opera production (and first heard Maria Callas in a piano rehearsal with his uncle conducting Il trovatore). As a teenager, he graduated to playing rehearsal piano for his uncle and others like Gianandrea Gavazzeni.

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