Elisa Citterio completed her musical studies in Brescia, graduating with top honors, distinction, and special mention in both violin and viola. From a young age, she won numerous solo and chamber music competitions, as well as scholarships in international competitions in Brescia, Stresa, Taranto, Biella, Chieti, and Saludecio. She attended numerous courses and masterclasses with internationally renowned teachers, including Franco Gulli, Corrado Romano, Dora Schwarzberg, Ilya Grubert, Sherban Lupu, Pavel Vernikov, and Dejan Bogdanovich.
Alongside her traditional study of the repertoire, she deepened her knowledge of historical performance practice from the Baroque to the Romantic period, following a historically informed approach with Chiara Banchini at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basel), Luigi Mangiocavallo in Rome, and Enrico Onofri. She successfully auditioned for and won positions in various symphony orchestras and opera houses in Italy. In 2004, she joined the Teatro alla Scala, where she remained until 2016, the year she won the competition to become Music Director of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra in Toronto, leading to her move to Canada.
She has been invited to serve as concertmaster and principal violinist by many of the world’s most renowned Baroque ensembles, including Europa Galante (Fabio Biondi), Il Giardino Armonico (Giovanni Antonini), Accademia Bizantina (Ottavio Dantone), Ensemble Zefiro (Alfredo Bernardini), Ensemble 415 (Chiara Banchini), Concerto Italiano (Rinaldo Alessandrini), Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble (Thomas Hengelbrock), Kammerorchester Basel, Seattle Symphony, Il Pomo D’Oro, Atalanta Fugiens, Les Violons du Roy, and La Lira d’Orfeo.
From 2017 to 2021, she maintained an intense concert schedule across North America, participating in tours in Australia and Europe, performing in over 150 concerts, recording 15 albums, teaching 10 masterclasses, and serving as Konzertmeister for 15 opera productions in collaboration with Opera Atelier in Toronto, Chicago, and Versailles.
She has taught masterclasses at institutions such as the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, the International Early Music Courses in Urbino, San Vito al Tagliamento, Brescia, Reggio Emilia, and at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, where she was invited back the following year to conduct the school’s Baroque orchestra. For over three years, she worked alongside Stefano Montanari as a professor at the Civica Scuola di Musica “Claudio Abbado” in Milan, and in 2015, she held open courses in Baroque violin at the Conservatorio “Luca Marenzio” in Brescia.
In May 2019, she was awarded the prestigious Arts, Science, and Culture Leonardo Da Vinci Award in Toronto for her contributions to the international musical and cultural scene. In July 2022, she participated as the only Italian juror in the Il Piccolo Violino Magico International Competition for Young Violinists, directed by Pavel Vernikov, dedicating teaching hours to a select number of participants. In November 2022, she became the first-ever Baroque violin professor at the Stauffer Center for Strings in Cremona, a historic institution specializing in string performance. That same month, she served as Jury President at the “Uccellini” competition in Forlimpopoli.
In July 2024, Citterio will make her debut in New York as conductor and violin soloist in Anna di Resburgo (1835) by Carolina Uccelli, leading the Teatro Nuovo orchestra on period instruments. In November 2024, she will begin her tenure as professor of Baroque violin and viola at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg.