Alex Cesare Elia is the principal trumpet of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.
Encouraged by his father, an amateur musician, Alex Elia grew up and became interested in music in Valle d'Aosta, in the music band of Chambave. At 17, he began performing professionally, including as a soloist, with various local orchestras and ensembles, and then obtained Bachelor and Master of Music in trumpet performance degrees with top honors under the guidance of Maestro Davide Sanson at the “Conservatoire de la Vallée d'Aoste”. He holds a full scholarship and attends the “Buchmann-Metha School of Music” at Tel Aviv University, where he studies with Yigal Meltzer, the first trumpet of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also awarded a prize in the annual solo competition at the end of the academic year. In the following years he continued his studies under the guidance of Andrea Lucchi, principal trumpet of orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
In the biennium 2012-2014, he is part of the orchestra of the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala, with which he participates in opera and ballet productions in the season of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and symphonic productions in Italy and abroad with world-renowned conductors and soloists. In the summer of 2014, he is a member of the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra.
He then collaborates with the orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, the Teatro Regio in Turin, the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, the Haydn Orchestra in Bolzano, the Regional Orchestra of Tuscany, the Teatro “Carlo Felice” in Genoa, the Milan Symphony Orchestra, the Sicilian Symphony Orchestra, the “Arturo Toscanini” Orchestra in Parma, and many others.
In the 2015 season, he is the first trumpet of the Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra in Guadalajara, Mexico.
For several years, he collaborates in the same role with the “Antonio Vivaldi” Orchestra, founded by his friend and conductor Lorenzo Passerini, where he also serves as one of the artistic advisors. He is present in LP, the orchestra's first CD, where he plays “Post Scriptum” by resident composer Piergiorgio Ratti.
He has performed solo concerts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the “Antonio Vivaldi” Orchestra, the d'Harmonie du Val d'Aoste Orchestra, the Valle d'Aosta Symphony Orchestra, the ensemble of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Brasov Philharmonic, la Filarmonica di Milano and others.
Awarded in several national solo competitions, he stands out in the prestigious “Aeolus International Competition for Wind Instruments” (2013) and in the 25th International City of Porcia Competition (2014).
For years he has collaborated profitably with the organist Marco Cadario with whom he recorded the double CD "Variations" with the Sonitus label. This is an innovative late romantic/impressionist project that explores all the duo's coloristic possibilities, in a repertoire that ranges from new transcriptions to compositions expressly written for them.
Together with him and Lorenzo Passerini (trombone), he founds the “Trio all'Opera”, a project based on instrumental performance of the operatic repertoire with the Italian opera organ of the 19th century that proudly continues the long tradition of popular dissemination of this great music.
Recent highlights include performing the Shostakovich's concerto for piano, trumpet and strings with the legendary Martha Argerich and the Rotterdam Philharmonic on a live television broadcast.