Elisa Bonazzi
Mezzosoprano
Elena Sciarra is a mezzo-soprano who completed her second-level degree (Master) in singing in 2016 at the Conservatory of Bologna, studying with Monica Bacelli and Gregory Bonfatti. She received the Zucchelli Scholarship for singing in 2014 and the National Arts Prize in 2013 for conservatory students with her ensemble LatinoBalcanica Ensemble, which was featured on RAI Radio 3 in 2012. She also holds a Master’s degree in Communication Sciences from the University of Bologna (2007).
Her artistic activity spans both early and contemporary repertoire. She has performed roles such as Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice (with Marcello Bufalini and the Orchestra Sinfonica Abruzzese), Rosina in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, Bradamante in Vivaldi’s Orlando furioso (at Teatro del Giglio in Lucca), and the Wife of Jaffett in Britten’s Noye’s Fludde. In contemporary music, she has appeared as soloist in Berio’s Laborintus II, Sequenza III, Folk Songs, and Altra Voce, as well as works by Cage (Aria, Europera 3) and Nono (La fabbrica illuminata), and in Monteverdi’s Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda.
She began her choral activity in the Coro da Camera di Bologna under Pier Paolo Scattolin. Since 2017 she has collaborated with the Chorus of the Teatro Regio di Parma, and since 2014 with the Chorus of the RSI (Swiss Italian Radio and Television), working with conductors including Diego Fasolis, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Antonello Manacorda, and performing alongside artists such as Martha Argerich and Cecilia Bartoli at the LAC in Lugano.
She was a member of the European Contemporary Orchestra (ECO), performing at major festivals such as the Enescu Festival in Bucharest, Théâtre National de la Criée in Marseille, Flagey in Brussels, and the Venice Biennale (2015). Earlier, she sang in Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna under Riccardo Muti at Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna, and in Holst’s The Planets conducted by Dennis Russell Davies.
In 2015 she founded the Zero Vocal Ensemble, focused on Renaissance, Baroque, and contemporary a cappella music, performing premieres at major Italian venues and festivals including Poetry Vicenza, Ateneo Veneto, Biblioteca Marciana, Ex Novo Festival (Venice), Accademia Filarmonica and Musica Insieme Contemporanea (Bologna), Teatro Ariosto and Collezione Maramotti (Reggio Emilia), and Pavia Barocca.
She has also produced a modern transcription of a 1561 Venetian madrigal book (Madregali a tre voci…, Antonio Gardano, 1561), published by AERCO in 2005.
