The Gaetano Donizetti Institute of Music

of Bergamo

Johann Simon Mayr.

Bust in the grand staircase of the Donizetti Institute

The “Gaetano Donizetti” Institute of Advanced Music Studies has its origins in the Lezioni caritatevoli di musica (“Charitable music lessons”) created in Bergamo by the german composer Johann Simon Mayr in the year 1805 to offer musical education and thereby a means of living to children of lower social levels who could not otherwise have afforded such training.

The public teaching of music had however a long tradition in Bergamo: a musical chapel which provided musical training for the singers of the church service in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore already existed towards the end of the 1400’s.

The most famous among the first group of Mayr’s pupils was without doubt Gaetano Donizetti.

In 1852 the school moved to one of the more prestigious buildings, located in the upper side of the town, where it was possible to teach a wider group of children, have longer hours and, for the first time, admit young girls to the school. Among the directors of the school in those days was the famous composer Amilcare Ponchielli. Many musicians formed in the Donizetti Institute became famous opera singers (for example the tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini) or professors in other conservatories, among which the “Giuseppe Verdi” of Milan.

Gaetano Donizetti

The Institute was administered by the Misericordia Maggiore (a civic welfare institutional service founded in Bergamo in the 13th century) until 1958, when it passed under the management of the City with the new name of “Civico Istituto Musicale Gaetano Donizetti”. Thanks to the later qualification of the Institute to the level of the italian State Conservatories, the number of students has further increased, coming from the Bergamo province and also from foreign countries.

In recent years the experimental courses created by the National Education Reform Bill (1999) for advanced music education in the areas of performance, teaching and choral conducting have been added to the curriculum. These are university courses defined in first level (a three-year course) and second level (a successive two-year course) which respectively lead to degrees comparable to the Bachelor and Master.

The wide music library of the Institute owns more of 22,000 volumes, since the 13th century.

In 2006 the Donizetti Institute attained the approval and enforcement of its Statute of Autonomy, thereby earning the rank of Institute of Advanced Music Studies. In 2009 it obtained the LLP Statement (Erasmus Project) and subscribed agreements with several european High Schools of Music. In 2007 the Donizetti Institute has moved to a new location in the center of the modern side of Bergamo.

Alfredo Piatti Hall, the auditorium of Donizetti Institute