Following a sounding success with a new production of “Turandot” at the Opéra national de Lorraine in 2013, Rani Calderon was appointed its principal guest conductor for season 2014-15 and its music director from season 2015-16. During his time there he has raised considerably the level of the orchestra and reinforced the presence of the orchestra and the opera in the city. A major change initiated by Calderon is the move of the orchestra to the prestigious “Salle Poirel” – where the symphonic concerts are given – as its official home and rehearsal stage.
Calderon initiated collaboration with the regional Conservatoire du grand Nancy, as well as a chamber music festival called “Classique Poursuite”, in which he performed as pianist with musicians of the orchestra in different venues of the city.
Rani Calderon studied with the best teachers of his time in both the Tel-Aviv and the Jerusalem Academis of Music. His piano teacher was the legendary Israeli pianist Pnina Salzman, pupil of Alfred Cortot. He studied conducting with Maestros Mendi Rodan and Noam Sheriff, and composition with Prof. Yitzhak Sadai.
He then went to Europe and studied the different opera styles with various specialists: Maestro Bruno Rigacci in Florence – an assistant of Tullio Serafin in his youth, Mme. Janine Reiss in Paris – the most acclaimed and influential French coach in the second half of the 20th century and a close collaborator of Maria Callas. He also worked with Mr. Richard Trimborn and Mrs. Rita Loving in Munich and Mr. Tom Christoff in Dresden – all of them specialists of the German repertoire.
Calderon's first appearances as an opera condcutor was at "Spazio Musica" in Orvieto, Italy, where he won three consecutive years (1996-8) the first prize and conducted performances of Puccini's "Suor Angelica", "Madama Butterfly" and "Il Tabarro". He conducted in various important opera houses and festivals such as the Semper Oper Dresden ("Faust", "Rigoletto", “La Bohème”), “Theater an der Wien” (“Il Trittico”), "La Monnaie", Bruxelles ("Il Viaggio a Rheims"), The Royal Danish Opera (“Semiramide”), Opéra National de Lorraine (“Turandot”, “Nabucco”, “Francesca da Rimini” & “Aleko” – transmitted on French TV), Monte-Carlo (“Andrea Chenier”), Toulouse ("Euryanthe" & "Oberon"),Toulon (“Ariadne auf Naxos”, “Don Giovanni”), Bilbao (“Faust”), the New Israeli Opera ("Rigoletto", "Il Trittico", "Turandot"), St. Etienne ("Thais" during the Massenet Festival 2009), Graz ("Elisir d'amore"), Martina Franca (Meyerbeer's "Semiramide" issued as a commercial CD by Dynamic), Liege ("La Gioconda", "La Vie Parisienne"), St. Gallen ("Le Nozze di Figaro"). He worked with various symphonic orchestras such as the Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre National d'Ile de France, Orchestre National de Montpellier, Orquesta del Principado de Asturias Oviedo, The Israeli Symphony Orchestra, the Sofia Philharmonic, the Romanian Radio orchestra and others.
Calderon became the musical director of the Filarmonica de Santiago – the Municipal's orchestra - in 2010 and during his three seasons tenure made of the newly formed orchestra a solid group with a distinguished musical profile acclaimed by both public and critics.
In 2014 he composed a song cycle for bass and piano in Russian entitled “Seven Pushkin Poems”.
Rani Calderon speaks fluently seven languages: Hebrew, English, Italian, French, German, Russian and Spanish. He has also studied ancient Greek.
Link to the Opera National de Lorraine music director page:
