Dubai Opera
Head
As per 2023, Paolo Petrocelli serves as the Head of Dubai Opera, the main performing arts center in the United Arab Emirates and the epitome of artistic excellence in the Middle East, an iconic multi-functional theatre developed by Emaar, situated in the heart of Downtown Dubai.
Stauffer Center for Strings
Director General
From 2020 to 2022, Petrocelli served as the founding Director General of the Stauffer Center for Strings in Cremona, the first international center dedicated entirely to string instruments, home to Stauffer Academy.
As Director General of the Stauffer Academy, he brought together a faculty of more than forty leading international artists, including Salvatore Accardo, Avi Avital, Matthew Barley, Lisa Batiashvili, Sol Gabetta, Bruno Giuranna, Daniel Hope, Aleksey Igudesman, Steven Isserlis, Misha Maisky, Antonio Meneses, Viktoria Mullova, Franco Petracchi, Gabriel Prokofiev, Quartetto di Cremona, Julian Rachlin, Caroline Shaw, Antoine Tamestit, Alisa Weilerstein.
Petrocelli designed and launched the Concertmaster Artist Diploma, the first advanced training program in the world dedicated entirely to concertmasters, bringing together as faculty members the concertmasters of the most prestigious European orchestras, like Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, La Scala Theatre Orchestra, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
He established the Stauffer Labs, new departments for innovation and creativity, and initiated an entire new series of concerts and talks broadcasted in live streaming from Cremona. Under his directorship, the Stauffer Center for Strings partnered with some of the most respected music and academic institutions around the world, like Juilliard School, Yale School of Music,Royal College of Music,Sorbonne University, Saïd Business School of the University of Oxford, and started artist residencies programs with music ensembles like the Ensemble intercontemporain, the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and the European Union Youth Orchestra
The Stauffer Center became the first All-Steinway & Sons School in Italy and the first music institution worldwide to have a digital library provided by Universal Edition.
On the occasion of the opening of the Stauffer Center, Petrocelli curated the release of the album “Stauffer Center Collection“, an unpublished collection of Deutsche Grammophon recordings from Stauffer faculty and alumni.
