Composer, conductor & educator
Stefano Sacher (Trieste, 1962) holds a master’s degree in Composition from Conservatory in Udine, a degree in Choral Composition and Conducting from the Conservatory in Trieste, where he studied also piano and singing, and in Orchestral Conducting from the Conservatory in Bologna. He also graduated in Literature and Arts from the University of Trieste, with a thesis on Sergej Prokofev’s music in movies.
He furthered his Compositional studies with Antonio Bibalo in Norway and with Hans Werner Henze in Rome.
Stefano Sacher has composed three operas ( Trobarclos 1991, La memoria di Medea 2016, Vite dispari 2021), the musical Gregor and Silvija (2020), choral music, chamber music, orchestral music, music for the theater, and songs.
He has conducted, amongst many other works, music by, Vivaldi, Bach, Haendel, Pergolesi, Haydn, Mozart, Cherubini, Rossini, Schubert, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Dvorak, Bruckner, Rheinberger, Josef Strauss, Saint-Saens, Janacek, Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni, Respighi, Bartok, Prokofiev, Kodaly, Gershwin, Ellington, Basie, K.Weill, A. Piazzolla, Viozzi, Merkù, Poulenc, Barber, Britten, Maxwell Davies, Rihm.
His works are regularly performed and broadcasted in Europe, Canada, the U.S. and have been published by Pizzicato and Nomos Editions.
Maestro Sacher’s conducting career has taken him throughout the world, to countries such as Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland, the U.S., Canada, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, Malta, Cuba and Mongolia, where he has conducted symphonic, choral and operatic repertoire.
Sacher has been teaching music at the United World College of the Adriatic since 2001.
He has also published a book of poems, articles and essays on musicology, and was a radio host for the Italian national radio RadioRai music programs.
From 2011 to 2021 he was the artistic director of the Associazione Mozart Italia sede di Trieste, where he founded a youth orchestra, the Amadeus Adriatic Orchestra, which he conducted. He was also the artistic director of Galleria Musicale from 2009 to 2012). He is was the co-artistic director of International Music Festival of the Adriatic ( 2013-2023), and is currently is currently active with DNA Festival (as of 2023) and Adriatic Woodwinds Festival (as of 2023).
Stefano Sacher has recently finished the composition of his new opera “La furia del mare”. It is inspired by the life of the philosopher Carlo Michelstaedter and was commissioned by the project GO!2025, European Capital of Culture.
The opera, with libretto by Mauro Rossi and directed by Jasmin Kovic, will be performed in March 2025 in Gorizia and Nova Gorica.
