Joseph Giardina is a native of New York who has been active in operatic circles since his conducting debut at the age of 16 with Rigoletto. After graduating from the Juilliard School of Music in New York he worked with Fritz Stiedry at the Metropolitan Opera of New York. In 1953 Giardina went to Italy, where he has resided since then, as a Fulbright scholar. He studied first at Santa Cecilia and the Pontifical Institute in Rome and then earned a degree in organ and sacred music from the Conservatory of Pesaro. Beginning in 1958 he worked for Giancarlo Menotti at the Festival of Two Worlds at Spoleto, and later became the musical director of Rome's English-language church of St. Paul's Inside the Walls. In 1970 Giardina began a twenty-year association with the Teatro del Opera in Rome, where he served as Maestro del Coro and vocal coach. He has coached many of the world's most famous singers, including Bruscantini, Bruson, Callas, Carreras, Gossotto, del Monaco, Di Stefano, Giacomini, Luchetti, Merighi, Raimondi, Rossi Lemeni, Sieghele, Zanesi, and Zeani. Outside Italy, Giardina has conducted, coached, and taught in a wide range of countries, including Albania, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, India, Ireland, Russia, Taiwan and the United States. In recent years Giardina has organized and led a chorus of sixty young Italians whose name was "Singin' Black". They used to sing American spirituals.
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