Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 facts about pianist-conductor and rising star Vanessa Benelli Mosell
Italian artist joins the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Schubert’s Third Symphony and other works
Vanessa Benelli Mosell.
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra presents Schubert’s Third Symphony on January 17 at the Orpheum, January 18 at Centennial Theatre, and January 19 at Bell Performing Arts Centre
WHEN VANCOUVER SYMPHONY Orchestra performs Schubert’s Symphony No. 3 at a trio of upcoming concerts in Metro Vancouver, it will host Italian conductor-pianist Vanessa Benelli Mosell. A rising star in the international music world, she has performed around the globe to critical acclaim. Also on the VSO program is Bartók’s playful Divertimento for String Orchestra and the North American premiere of Philippe Schoeller’s Sereno Sole for piano and strings. Here are a few things to know about the burgeoning artist before her local appearances.
She was a toddler when she first showed an interest in music
Born in 1987 in Prato, Italy, Benelli Mosell began her comprehensive musical studies when she was just three years old. At age seven, she was admitted to the International Piano Academy in Imola. She gave her orchestral debut as a soloist at age nine followed by an appearance in New York at 11 with pianist Pascal Rogé, who described her as “the most natural musical talent I have encountered in my entire life”. Having entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 2007, she went on to earn her master’s degree at the Royal College of Music in London, graduating in 2012.
Piano and conducting aren’t her only talents
Benelli Mosell has also received formal educational musical training in violin, choir and lyrical singing, score reading, and composition.
Her work has taken her around the globe
Benelli Mosell has conducted prestigious ensembles the world over, including Recreation Orchestra and Vienna Chamber Orchestra in Austria; Le Balcon in Montreal; Germany’s Klassische Philharmonie Bonn and Leipziger Symphonieorchester; Orchestra Sinfonica di Sanremo, the Juni Orchestra of Accademia di Santa Cecilia and the Divertimento Ensemble in Italy; the Romanian Chamber Orchestra, the Järvi Academy Sinfonietta in Estonia, the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, the Witold Lutosławski Chamber Philharmonic in Poland, the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra in Croatia, and more. This season she will also lead the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra.
As a performer, she has played with the Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar de Venezuela, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre National de Lyon, and beyond. In June 2024, she toured China with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
She has recorded nine albums
As a soloist, Benelli Mosell has nine releases for Decca Classics, including Casta Diva, which focuses on Italian opera; the first and second books of Debussy’s Twelve Preludes; and her latest, ITALIA, released in September 2023.
Critics love her
Benelli Mosell has received high praise from esteemed publications like the Guardian, which stated “Powerful, emotional, romantic and dramatic, she sweeps us along in a dazzling display of assured technique”, while Gramophone Magazine said “Her pianism is extremely refined and nuanced” and noted her “sparkling technique in demanding music”. Telerama wrote “The playing of Vanessa Benelli Mosell is full of magnificent prodigality….
Nothing testamentary, however, in her interpretation, but a spontaneity, a radiant joy that makes you forget about the permanent split of the hands, the tough mental gymnastic of score reading and memorisation.” Perhaps the New York Post said it best: “a remarkably musical and fluent young pianist….Remember the name.”
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