Born in Montreal, Giancarlo Scalia is very active as a pianist, vocal coach and composer. He has performed as a collaborative pianist throughout Canada, Italy, Austria, Germany, France, the United States and China and his compositions have been presented throughout North America and Europe.
Mr. Scalia has served as musical director or répétiteur for various companies such as Opéra immédiat (Chauve-Souris, Carmen, Aïda, Elisir d’amore, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Don Pasquale), l’Opéra bouffe du Québec (Les Brigands, Véronique, Le Baron Tzigane, Le Chanteur de Mexico, La fille du tambour-major) and the Halifax Summer Opera Festival (Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Les Contes d’Hoffmann) as well as for Contact Theatre (Next to Normal), Lakeshore Light Opera (The Mikado, Thespis, Iolanthe), Light Opera of Montreal (The Tender Land, Sweeney Todd), Snowglobe Theatre (The Medium, Riders to the Sea), Haskell Opera House (La Traviata), OperAmore (Don Giovanni) and Opéra Outside the Box (Le Téléphone). He has also collaborated with l’Opéra de Montréal and it’s Atelier lyrique, the Festival Classica, les Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques, Opéra de Lévis, Opéra Plus, Opera Atelier in Toronto, Gesellschaft für Musiktheater in Vienna, l’Istituto Italiano di Cultura de Montreal, la Semaine italienne de Montréal and the Société d’art vocal de Montréal. As a coach, he has worked with numerous young singers at Concordia University, the Scuola internazionale di Teatro Italiano Giovanni Grasso and the École de musique Vincent d’Indy (voice department and operetta workshop).
As a performer, his large and diverse repertoire ranges from full operas to the major art song works of Schumann, Schubert, Vaughan-Williams, Debussy and Poulenc. In October 2017, he performed 8 concerts in China with baritone Hugo Laporte, mezzo soprano Marie-Andrée Mathieu and soprano Jessica Latouche. In 2016, he recorded and released the album Arie e canzoni with soprano Sophie De Cruz featuring arias by Puccini, Donizetti and Verdi; art songs by Donaudy, Gastaldon, and Tosti as well as his composition Ideale.
Giancarlo Scalia is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre and has composed for soloists and ensembles such as l’Orchestre de la Francophonie, l’Ensemble Paramirabo, l’Ensemble Saxologie, violinist Nikita Morozov, cellist Julie Hereish, mezzo soprano Rose Naggar-Tremblay, the West Island Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre d’Harmonie Leonardo da Vinci and the Grand Ensemble de Cuivres de l’Université de Montréal. His catalogue includes works for a variety of instrumentations (solo instruments, voice, chamber groups, ensembles, mixed music, film music) and his compositional style incorporates both traditional and contemporary elements; a combination of modal, tonal and atonal music.
He obtained a Bachelor’s degree and a DESS diploma in piano performance under the direction of Jimmy Brière and Marc Durand and a Master’s degree in composition under the direction of Denis Gougeon from the Université de Montréal before pursuing his studies privately with pianists Walter Moore and Norman Shetler in Vienna and
Claude Webster in Montréal. He has also participated in vocal accompaniment programs at the Orford Arts Centre,
the Académie Francis Poulenc (Tours, France) the Wiener Musikseminar (Vienna, Austria), Vox Musicae (Senigallia, Italy) and the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy (La bohème).
(May 2022)