Our Tutors
John Farrer was Music Director of the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra, California for over 30 years, was formerly President of the Conductors Guild and has been Music Director of the Roswell Symphony Orchestra for over 40 years. He is also Music Director of the Santa Maria Philharmonic.
Mr Farrer is a frequent guest with orchestras in England, and visits London on a regular basis in the capacity of guest conductor. As senior guest conductor of the English Sinfonia he has toured with the orchestra throughout England and northern France. His eight recordings with the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony and English Sinfonia have received high praise from critics around the world. He has been associated with the San Francisco Symphony as a cover conductor for the orchestra's subscription concerts.
Mr Farrer was a speaker in the San Francisco Symphony's series of Inside Music talks, led the orchestra in Concerts for Kids, and conducted a programme at Stern Grove which attracted 20,000 listeners. Mr Farrer is also a member of the music advisory committee of the Young Musicians Foundation of Los Angeles, and has been appointed a national trustee of the National Symphony Orchestra of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
Maestro Farrer recently received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of California Fine Arts System.
Howard Williams, one of Britain’s most experienced conductors on the international platform, has covered a formidable range of work both in the opera house and concert hall. In the UK, he has conducted most of the leading orchestras.
In Europe Howard has appeared with the Austrian Radio Symphony, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Belgian Radio Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Slovak Philharmonic, Hungarian National Philharmonic, Hungarian Radio Symphony, Budapest Philharmonic, Orchestre Nationale de Lyon, Orchestre de Strasbourg, Orchestre Symphonique de Montpellier, Orchestre de Picardie, RTE Symphony Orchestra, Dublin and the Portuguese National Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted at the BBC Proms and at the Edinburgh, Leeds, Bath and Brighton Festivals, as at festivals in Budapest, Hong Kong, and throughout France and Spain.
Following his appointment in 1989 as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Pécs Symphony Orchestra (now Pannon Philharmonic), Hungary, Howard devoted much time to working with the leading orchestras in that country. He has been awarded the Artisjus award and Bartók Medal for services to Hungarian music. On leaving Pécs in 2000, Howard was created Permanent Guest Conductor by the orchestra. In the same year he was appointed Head of Conducting at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Since 2013 he has been Musical Director of the Sinfonia of Cambridge.
His six years’ in Cardiff enabled him to explore and develop his attitude to training conductors and student orchestras. He is now a Professor of Conducting at the Royal College of Music in London.
Luigi Pagliarini is the Artistic Director for the Teatro Rinaldi. He studied clarinet and classical singing before graduating with honours at the Conservatorio de Bologna in Orchestral Conducting in 2004. He has studied with Luciano Acocella, Daniele Gatti, Deyan Pavlov, Donato Renzetti, Otto Werner Mueller, Colin Metters, Dr John Farrer, Neil Thomson, Donald Thulean, Daniel Lewis, Lawrence Golan, Brooke Creswell.
Luigi is proud to have been an alumni of London Conducting Workshop, and is now highly acclaimed as a conductor of orchestral works with choir, combining his skills in orchestral conducting with his knowledge of vocal techniques, acquired in his former career as a singer in the field of Ancient and Baroque music. He founded and still conducts the Youth Orchestra OSMIM OPERA at the “Fondazione I Teatri” (Reggio Emilia), while conducting the Community Choir “Adorno” and the Choir of the “De André” Theatre.
For several years he conducted the Baroque Orchestra “Gli Invaghiti” (Chivasso, Italy). He teaches Clarinet in public schools in Italy, and Music Theory and Chamber Music at the Reggio Emilia Conservatory.
Luciano Acocella is an accomplished conductor who studied at Conservatorio Santa Cecilia, the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen, and various prestigious Italian academies. He launched his professional career after winning prizes in the “Prokofiev” and “Mitropoulos” competitions in 1996, conducting across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Acocella made his operatic debut in 2000 with The Rape of Lucretia in Copenhagen and went on to conduct notable productions like Madama Butterfly, Rigoletto, and Tosca across major international venues, including the Opéra de Avignon, the Opernhaus in Zurich, and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris.
He is known for his extensive symphonic work, particularly with Brahms, Beethoven, Mahler, and Stravinsky, and his dedication to contemporary composers such as Xenakis, Adams, and Sciarrino. Acocella has conducted prestigious orchestras, including the Philharmonic Orchestra of St. Petersburg, Orchestre National de France, and Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.
From 2011 to 2014, he served as the musical director of Opéra de Rouen-Haute Normandie. His festival appearances include the Festival Rossini in Wildbad, where he premiered Meyerbeer's Romilda e Costanza. He has also conducted for the Festival della Valle d’Itria, Les Chorégies d’Orange, and Musiques en fête. Acocella's notable recordings include I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Demetrio e Polibio. In 2022, he conducted Adina by Rossini at the Festival Rossini in Wildbad and the Royal Festival Opera in Krakow.
After graduating in piano, Diana D’Alessio then devoted herself to the study of choral conducting, attending advanced courses held by Italian and foreign conductors, obtaining the Diploma in Choral Music and Choral Conducting and the Second Level Degree in Choral Conducting. At the same time, she studied music pedagogy at the Zoltán Kodály Institute in Kecskemét, Hungary. Subsequently, she was involved in the propagation of the “Kodály method” in Italy for the Hungarian Institute and for AIKEM (Italian Association of Kodály Music Education). The analysis of Kodályan thought was also the subject of her studies in Foreign Languages and Literatures (University of Padua, 2005). Since 1998 she has collaborated with the prestigious Teatro La Fenice in Venice, at first as an accompanist and assistant maestro, and then, since 2008, as the director of the Piccoli Cantori Veneziani children’s choir for all the operas and symphonic productions, collaborating with the following conductors: M. W. Chung, D. Callegari, B. Bartoletti, Z. Peskó, J. Valčuha, O. M Wellber, C. Goldstein, M. Gerts, J. Bignamini, G. Tourniaire, R. Frizza, D. Matheuz, S. Ranzani, F. Lanzillotta, E. Calesso, D. Rustioni, R. Treviño, N. Luisotti, F. Luisi, E. Inbal, J. Jiemin. Since 1999 she has been working as a choir conductor and in 2008 she became the principal conductor and artistic director of the Associazione Cantori Veneziani with which she has an intense concert activity. Since 1998 she has been involved in teaching activities in various fields, both scholastic and non-scholastic, focusing mostly on children’s choirs. Since 2020 she has been teaching Choral Conducting and Choral Composition at the Conservatory of Bologna.