VINCENZO SCALERA, born in New Jersey to an Italian-American family, started studying piano when he was just five years old. After training at the Manhattan School of Music, he became an assistant conductor with the New Jersey State Opera. His musical education later took him to Italy, where he joined La Scala in Milan as a coach and pianist, collaborating with distinguished conductors including Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Gianandrea Gavazzeni and Carlos Kleiber.
Scalera has appeared at numerous prestigious festivals—among them Edinburgh, Martina Franca, Jerusalem, Istanbul and Les Chorégies d’Orange, as well as the Carinthian Summer Music Festival, the Salzburg Festival and the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. Over the years, he has partnered with many celebrated vocalists, such as Carlo Bergonzi, Andrea Bocelli, Montserrat Caballé, José Carreras, Juan Diego Flórez, Leyla Gencer, Vittorio Grigolo, Sumi Jo, Raina Kabaivanska, Katia Ricciarelli, Renata Scotto, Cesare Siepi and Lucia Valentini Terrani, performing in major musical centres across the globe.
His recordings feature collaborations with Sumi Jo (La Promessa), Renata Scotto (Complete Songs of Verdi), Carlo Bergonzi (Canzone: The Art of Bel Canto and Carlo Bergonzi in Concert), and José Carreras (Comeback Concerts), along with album Élégie for Sony Classical with Anita Rachvelishvili (2021). He has also appeared with Carreras in three televised recitals - In Vienna, In Concert and Comeback Concert in Spain. His long-standing artistic partnership with Carlo Bergonzi is highlighted in Bergonzi Celebrates Gigli, a 1985 Carnegie Hall performance that received overwhelming acclaim. More recently, he performed in a live-streamed Metropolitan Opera concert with Sondra Radvanovsky and Piotr Beczała.
Scalera’s harpsichord playing can be heard on the soundtrack of the film version of La Cenerentola and on the first recording of Il viaggio a Reims, both conducted by Claudio Abbado. A Steinway Artist, he currently serves on the faculty of the Academy for the Performing Arts at La Scala.