FRANCESCA TORELLI was born in Reggio Emilia, Italy. After earning a degree in lute with the highest marks at the Conservatory of Verona, she completed her studies with Nigel North at the Guildhall School of Music in London. At the same time, she studied renaissance and baroque singing with Auriol Kimber.

From the beginning, her concert activities have featured the repertoires for voice and lute (singing while accompanying herself on the instrument), as well as the solo repertoire for lute and theorbo and basso continuo.
As a soloist, she has participated in numerous festivals in Europe, South America and Australia.
She has provided and played the music for various theatrical productions and has appeared as a lutenist on television programs for RAI 2, Channel 4, and others. She has also recorded for the national Italian radio (RAI Radiotre) and for other radio networks throughout Europe.

Ensemble Scintille di Musica, Mantova, teatro Bibiena

She has made two solo recordings (on Tactus) with music by two 17th-century Italian lute composers: Pietro Paolo Melli and Alessandro Piccinini (reprint Brilliant 2011), the solo albums John Dowland: lute songs, lute music (2009) and Musique pour le Roy-Soleil: Robert de Visée, works for theorbo (2012), both for the American label Magnatune.

She has recorded for the labels Tactus, Dynamic, Stradivarius, Mondo Musica and Nuova Era, with the ensembles Cappella Artemisia, Sans souci, Cappella Palatina, Accademia Farnese and the chamber orchestra Offerta Musicale of Venice.
Also, she has collaborated with the orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Vivaldi ensemble of the Solisti Veneti, l’Accademia degli Astrusi, Capella Regiensis and with various choirs and chamber orchestras.

Francesca Torelli has edited publications of music for theorbo (for SPES, Florence), and written articles on certain Italian composers for early plucked instruments for American, English and Italian musical periodicals. In 2006 A tutor for the Theorbo, an handbook written by Francesca Torelli went out for Ut Orpheus editions. This is the first practical method dedicate to this instrument and it’s used in many European and American Conservatoires and music schools.

Ensemble Scintille di Musica, Venezia, Teatro Malibran

She is the founder and director of the ensemble Scintille di musica with whom she has recorded a CD for the Futuro antico series on EMI : Mantova, la musica alla corte dei Gonzaga, featuring the voice of Angelo Branduardi. Since 2007 five more cd went out of the same series, with Francesca Torelli director-lutenist: these recordings are about Sixteenth and Seventeenth century Italian music and obtained great public consense.
Her repertoire includes music by 16th, 17th and 18th-century composers, as well as contemporary lute music.

Today’s composers as Marcela Pavia and Ivan Fowler write lute and theorbo music for her.

She has taught lute at the conservatories of Bari and Vicenza and has held seminars and master classes at numerous Universities and musical institutions: Schola Cantorum Basel, Escuela Universitaria de Musica de Montevideo, Darwin University (Australia) and others.
Since 2001 she is lute professor at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan.

Abstract

FRANCESCA TORELLI has participated as a soloist (lute and voice), in numerous festivals in Europe, South America and Australia.
She has provided and played the music for various theatrical productions and has appeared as a lutenist on television programs for RAI 2, Channel 4, and others. She has also recorded for the national Italian radio RAI Radiotre and for other radio and television networks throughout Europe.
She has made two solo recordings (on Tactus) with music by Pietro Paolo Melli and Alessandro Piccinini (reprint Brilliant 2011), a recording with John Dowland’s songs and lute music and a cd: Musique pour le Roy-Soleil: Robert de Visée, Works for theorbo (2012), both for the american label Magnatune (2009).
She has recorded for the labels Tactus, Dynamic, Stradivarius, Mondo Musica and Nuova Era, with the ensembles Cappella Artemisia, Sans souci, Cappella Palatina, Accademia Farnese and Offerta Musicale.

In 2006 A tutor for the Theorbo, an handbook written by Francesca Torelli went out for Ut Orpheus editions. This is the first practical method dedicate to this instrument.
She is the founder and director of the ensemble Scintille di musica with whom she has recorded five CDs for the Futuro antico series on EMI in collaboration with the singer Angelo Branduardi.
These recordings are about Sixteenth and Seventeenth century Italian music.
Since 2001 she is lute professor at the “GiuseppeVerdi” Conservatory in Milan.