Michael Rossi - Artistic Director and Founder

Michael Rossi is a rising star in the next generation of conductors. He has conducted the world's leading orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa 

As an opera conductor he made his international debut conducting Plácido Domingo and the Chinese National Opera Orchestra in Beijing in a live television broadcast and his Washington National Opera Main Stage Debut conducting Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. Since then, he has led the Washington National Opera on numerous occasions with performances of La Boheme, two  productions of Hansel & Gretel, the first National Endowment of the Arts Opera Honors, and the orchestra’s Strathmore Hall Debut concert. He made his Carnegie Hall debut conducting the premiere of Marcos Galvany’s opera Oh My Son and has recently recorded the album. 

As an educator, Michael has founded the Miami Music Festival which educates over 250 young professional musicians each summer for 8 weeks with the world's leading performers and educators. In only 4 years time, Michael has expanded the season to include 4 full opera productions, 4 Symphonic Concerts, a Professional Wagner Institute, 50 solo recitals /chamber music performances, and a pioneering and intensive Career Institute that he teaches to entrepreneurial participants during the summer session. Recent conducting performances in Miami have included Mahler's 5th Symphony, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Strauss's, Also Sprach Zarathustra and collaborations with notable singers such as Christine Goerke, Alan Held and Christine Brewer during the Wagner Institute Performances. 

Michael graduated from the Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, having been selected for the program by world- renowned tenor Plácido Domingo. As a Cover Conductor for the Philadelphia Orchestra he has assisted world-renowned conductors including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Stéphane Denève, Manfred Honeck, Itzhak Perlman, and Vladimir Jurowski. Michael was awarded a fellowship to the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen in 2009 and 2010 where he studied with David Zinman, Robert Spano, Hugh Wolff and Larry Rachleff. He was selected by Kurt Masur to participate in the Kurt Masur Conducting Seminar at the Manhattan School of Music in 2010 and 2012. Mr. Rossi is following the path of many conductors who began their careers first as instrumentalists. At the age of 22, he won the position of 2nd Trumpet in the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra.