Sherborne
Summer School of Music
2024
Practical Conducting Course : Biographies
Rodolfo Saglimbeni returned to live in his native Venezuela in 1987 to become one of its leading conductors. He studied at the RAM (where he won many prizes) with Colin Metters, George Hurst and John Carewe and in Rome with Franco Ferrara. He was first runner up at the Besançon International Competition for Conductors and also won fellowships from the British Council and the Philharmonia Chorus. He was Associate Conductor of the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra and is the founder and Artistic Director of the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho Symphony Orchestra. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Caracas Municipal Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela, the Universidad Nacional de Cuvo Symphony Orchestra in Mendoza Argentina and Principal Conductor of the National Orchestra of Chile.
Rodolfo’s concerts are regularly broadcast on radio and television in Venezuela and the South American Network. He has conducted symphonic, operatic and ballet repertoire extensively in Italy, Spain, France, the USA and many South American countries including his recent debut at the legendary Colon Theatre in Buenos Aires. His recordings on CD radio and television include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and the works of many Latin American composers. He holds the position of professor of conducting at the University Institute for Musical Studies in Caracas and the Mozarteum School. As a founder member of “El Sistema” in the provinces of Venezuela, he has been tutor and advisor in conducting for many young conductors including Gustavo Dudamel, who started his conducting studies in one of the workshops and seminars organised periodically by the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.
Apart from his main conducting activities and his work at Sherborne Summer School of Music, Rodolfo organises seminars for conducting students of professional and youth orchestras, music schools and universities in Europe and South America.
Rodolfo will be assisted by John Longstaff who read music at Girton College, Cambridge and studied conducting with George Hurst, Edward Downes and Vilem Tausky.
He came second in the 1988 Leeds Conductors Competition and since then has held full time positions at the Opera House in Kiel, Germany and with Northern Ballet. He has worked on projects with Sir Charles Mackerras, David Lloyd Jones, John Price-Jones, Ivor Bolton and Richard Bonynge and is a sought-after composer, orchestrator, arranger and conducting teacher as well as playing for conducting courses with Denise Ham and Sian Edwards.
John is Director of Music at St. Peter’s Church in Harrogate and was until 2011 Artistic Director of the Sheffield Symphony Orchestra. His children’s ballet Goldilocks and the Three Bears was shown on CBeebies television and on national tour with Northern Ballet. With English National Ballet he has conducted Nutcracker, Giselle, Swan Lake and Coppélia and in 2019 he made a new English translation of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. During lockdown his reduced orchestrations of ballet scores were played in several notable opera houses including, Covent Garden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, L’Opéra National de Bordeaux and the Greek National Opera in Athens.