The Italian conductor, composer, musicologist and flautist, Federico Maria Sardelli, studied philosophy at the Università di Pisa. In 1984 Federico Maria Sardelli founded the Baroque orchestra Modo Antiquo, with which he appears at major festivals and concert halls throughout Europe as both soloist and conductor. He is regularly invited to the most prestigious European concert halls. Since 2006 he has been principal guest conductor of the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra. He appears as a guest conductor with many symphony orchestras, including the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Staatskapelle Halle, the Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Real Filarmonia de Galicia, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Arena di Verona, the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, etc.
Federico Maria Sardelli records for Naïve and Deutsche Grammophon. He has made more than forty recordings as soloist and conductor, some of them in co-production with the German broadcast company Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WRD 3). He has twice been nominated for the Grammy Awards, the most prestigious recording prize, and he is one of the top artists of the Vivaldi Edition by Naïve. Federico Maria Sardelli has been a notable protagonist in the Vivaldi renaissance of the past few years: he conducted the world premiere recording and performance of the operas Arsilda Regina di Ponto, Tito Manlio, Motezuma, and Atenaide.
During the season 2014/15 he conducted the world premiere of a recently discovered version of Orlando Furioso by Vivaldi, wrote to be performed in Rome in 1714, with the Accademia Barocca of Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, George Frideric Handel's Alcina with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra at Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Orfeo ed Euridice at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, the annual Gala concert of Deutschen Händel-Solisten at the Internationalen Händel-Festspiele in Karlsruhe, as well as many symphonic concerts on the podium of Russian National Orchestra and Orchestra of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence. He opened the 2015/16 season with his debut on the podium of Teatro Regio di Torino leading, for the first time in Italy, Cécile Roussat and Julien Lubek's production of Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell, followed by his return on the podium of Orchestra of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence and of Accademia Barocca of Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Alongside his career in the concert hall, he is also extremely active as a musicologist. He is a member of the musicological committee of the Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, and has published many musicological essays and critical editions (he is the author of the study Vivaldi's Music for Flute and Recorder, translated by Michael Talbot and published in the UK by Ashgate). He is general editor of the collection of facsimile editions Vivaldiana and of the Opere Incomplete (SPES, Florence). Peter Ryom has chosen him to be the person in charge of the continuing Vivaldi Catalogue (RV). For his artistic merits, on 28th November 2009, the Government of Tuscany decorated Federico Maria Sardelli with the Gonfalone d'Argento, the highest medal of honour. Federico Maria is also a painter, engraver and satirical writer.
