Francesco performed with the Cantate Choir in the Handel’s Messiah in January 2016.

Francesco Ghelardini was born in Florence and has studied Singing with Kathleen Lafferty at the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini, where he also studied Recorder with David Bellugi. He attended classes in baroque performance with Rossana Bertini, Jill Feldmann, Gloria Banditelli and Christophe Rousset.

He has sung with such recognized conductors as Rinaldo Alessandrini, Peter Phillips, Andrew Lawrence-King, Alan Curtis and has been regularly invited to many leading festivals in Italy and abroad, such as Festival Monteverdiano di Cremona, Festival Pucciniano di Torre del Lago, Festival di Spoleto, Accademia Chigiana, Auditòrio Nacional de Musica de Madrid, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Milano Classica, Barocktage Stift Melk. He has sung the main part in Alessandro Melani’s Il Sacrificio d’Abel with Concerto Italiano under conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini at the early music festival Trigonale in Klagenfurt (Austria) and in Cuenca (Spain) at the Semàna Musica Religiosa. He has sung the title role in Carissimi’s Historia di Job at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and at Festival Barocco in Viterbo. In Florence at the Teatro della Pergola he has played the role of Amore Divino in A. Scarlatti’s Trionfo della Vergine SS with the baroque orchestra Il Rossignolo and the roles of Secrecy, Mopsa and Chinese Man in Purcell’s Fairy Queen at the Teatro Goldoni with Maggio Fiorentino Baroque Orchestra. Most recently he has been Cornelia in Scarlatti’s Il Trionfo dell’Onore at the Teatro Verdi in Pisa.

His recordings, for labels like Opus111, Divox Antiqua and Tactus, include Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine for OPUS111 with Concerto Italiano and Cesti’s Le Disgrazie d’Amore for Hyperion with Auser Musici (The Courtier).