"I am a pianist and piano teacher. I have been conducting didactic ensembles since 2007, but I was not comfortable, I felt the lack of a technique that would allow to express myself and clearly convey what I wanted to say.
In 2019, on the occasion of a national festival in Bracciano (Rome) in which I participated with my school orchestra, I finally made the decision to seriously study conducting, just to learn the technique, without any ambition to conduct big orchestras ...
So I searched the web for conducting courses. I did not know Ennio Nicotra, although he is Sicilian like me, but reading about his studies in St. Petersburg with Ilya Musin interested me very much! I have always loved Russian culture, I love their holistic approach to musical study and the Musin method, so rigorous in structure yet clear in semantics, with an explicit yet elegant gestural language always coherent from a historical, stylistic and compositional point of view that enables to acquire gradually the technical elements necessary to slowly develop a complete conducting style. This is thanks to an in-depth study of the repertoire, of the greatest masterpieces of symphonic literature - an essential training ground for applying the basic principles of technique within multiform musical records!
Therefore, I immediately ordered his book and began to study the basic elements avidly ... Seeing them applied to the repertoire through the DVD made me understand that this was the technique I wanted to learn, the one I needed, nothing else.
However, his masterclasses were international in character, it seemed impossible to participate, I had no experience with professional symphony or chamber orchestras ...
I tried anyway, and was admitted to my amazement ...
I attended 3 annual courses with increasing passion, conducting the Opera orchestra in Rome at the final concerts. I thank Ennio Nicotra for believing in me and I wish him to continue spreading the Musin method all over the world!"
Elisabetta Russo
