Beyond the Score: Inside the Missouri Chamber Music Festival

Nina Ferrigno, described by the St. Louis Post Dispatch as "a magnificent pianist," is a collaborative artist at home in a multitude of diverse musical settings. Her playing is said to be, “...always precise with superb accentuation and warmth of feeling...”. Nina is a founding member of the Boston-based Calyx Piano Trio and has appeared in major concert venues throughout North America. She has appeared as soloist with the St. Louis Symphony, Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the Boston Pops, and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. Her collaborative large ensemble appearances include those as principal keyboardist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, Chicago Symphony and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP).

Ms. Ferrigno is a graduate of New England Conservatory of Music, where she received degrees with distinction in performance as a student of Wha Kyung Byun. Nina is committed to bringing classical music to new audiences and expanding the repertoire through commissioning, and working with living composers to perform new works in a variety of settings. Her discography includes chamber music of Lansing McLoskey on Albany Records, Bernard Rands “Canti Triology” on Arsis Audio and a recent release on Bridge Records of “This is Not a Story” by Christopher Stark which garnered “...special mention to pianist Nina Ferrigno who can jazz it up or summon a pianissimo of the quietist order” [JWR]. Her 2010 recording of Elliott Schwartz’s Chamber Concerto III: Another View for the BMOP Sound label was describ… Read More

Italian mezzo soprano Benedetta Orsi, now resident in the United States, has been praised by Teresa Berganza as “perfect voice for belcanto”. In February 2022 Benedetta received the Paul Harris Fellow Award in Rome, Italy, as one of the 14 most influential Italian excellences, and only woman, to spread the Italian culture and art abroad. Recently, she was selected by Florida Grand Opera to translate into Spanish the Italian comic opera Il Matrimonio Segreto by Domenico Cimarosa, for their Miami premier.

Mrs. Orsi is one of only a few contemporary mezzo sopranos to have performed all three of Donizetti’s Tudor Operas: Jane Seymour in Anna Bolena, Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda and Sara in Roberto Devereux with Royal Opera Theater in Manchester, UK. Recent performances also include Adalgisa in Norma with Winter Opera St. Louis, the title role of Carmen with Winter Opera St. Louis, Amore Opera in New York, Mamma Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana with the New Jersey Festival Orchestra, Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera with the Miami Lyric Opera and Maddalena in Rigoletto with Amore Opera.

Benedetta’s performance credits include roles in Verdi Rigoletto, Falstaff, Trovatore, Bellini Norma and La Sonnambula, Rossini L’Italiana in Algeri and Il Turco in Italia and Massenet Werther. Along with concert appearances at Carnegie Hall in NYC and throughout Italy, Austria, England, United States and Spain, she has performed with the Arianna String Quartet, St. Louis Philharmonic Orchestra, Gateway Festival Orchestra, New Jersey Festival Orchestra, Boulder Symphony Orchestra,… Read More