An Italian trumpet player successfully exported in Japan. Amadeus magazine
Ottaviano Cristofoli is solo trumpet of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo.
He was born in Udine (Italy), in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region and started studying trumpet with professor Fabiano Cudiz, graduating in 2004 from the Jacopo Tomadini Conservatory in Udine.
In the same year he joined the “Orchestra Giovanile Italiana” (OGI) in the Fiesole Music School and in 2007 he became Associate Member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra as well as of the Miami New World Symphony Orchestra in the USA. After a selection, he also resulted eligible as a Substitute Principal Trumpet and Extra trumpet Member for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. From 2006 to 2008 he was a member of the “Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival Orchestra” (SHMF) in Germany, under the direction of Christoph Eschenbach. In 2008 he moved to Japan, and joined as first trumpet the “Hyogo Performing Art Center Orchestra” (HPAC) in Kobe, under the artistic direction of Yutaka Sado. In 2009, under the artistic direction of Alexander Lazarev, he was appointed solo trumpet of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2015 he released his first disc “Fulgor”, together with the Italian pianist Martina Frezzotti on Nippon Acoustic Records. The CD features unpublished Italian music dedicated to Mr Cristofoli by composers Giampaolo Testoni, Alessandro Lucchetti, Alberto Cara, Marco Gatto, Claudio Cimpanelli and Federico Biscione. In the same year he also performed the world premiere of the “Tokyo Suite”, a concert for trumpet and orchestra dedicated to him by composer Gabriele Roberto and commissioned by the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. More recently, in 2019, he performed in Italy Yasuhide Ito’s trumpet concerto, also dedicated to him by the Japanese composer.
Since 2016 he is a member of the Japanese “Samurai brass” a crossover ensemble with whom he shares the stage with the most influential Japanese orchestral and jazz brass musicians. Moreover, he carries out an intense activity of recording soundtracks for numerous films and TV series, both for Italian and Japanese broadcasting companies.
In 2018 his second CD, “Azzurra”, recorded with the Japanese pianist Doremi Takahashi, was published by the label Nippon Acoustic Records and released for download by the Italian music magazine Amadeus, that also published a portrait and an interview to Mr Cristofoli in November 2019. Since the same year, he is the artistic director of the “Music System Italy/Japan” project, which offers an integrated model of tourism in his home region Friuli Venezia Giulia, combining music courses, masterclasses, concerts as well as cultural and gastronomic experiences.