Francesca Orlando is a concert pianist, Italian Language Coach at the Royal Academy of Music and piano teacher at King's College London.
'Francesca is superb - she is thorough in her approach, works in detail, and has a forensic ear. She brings the language to the music and vice versa, and won over the chorus with her clarity of delivery, gentle persistence and sense of humour.'
Neil Ferris, Director, BBC Symphony Chorus
Bilingual in Italian and English and fluent in German and Spanish, Francesca pursued her interest in languages by specialising in Italian language pronunciation for singers, studying with distinguished Italian Opera Coach, Ubaldo Fabbri, and Matteo Dalle Fratte‘s Melofonetica method. Since 2020 she has been an Italian Coach of the Academy‘s Vocal Studies Department, coaching singers on Italian pronunciation, translation and interpretation. In 2023 Francesca worked with conductor Neil Ferris as the Italian Coach of the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Chorus for the Last Night of the Proms, conducted by Marin Alsop. In 2024 she was the Italian Coach for Wimbledon Choral‘s rendition of Mirror of Perfection, composed by Richard Blackford and performed at Cadogan Hall, London.
As a concert pianist, Francesca has performed in many acclaimed concert venues across England and Europe including Wigmore Hall, St James’ Church Piccadilly and the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Following her debut performance of Schumann's Piano Concerto in May 2012 in St George’s Hall, Bristol, Francesca has worked as a soloist with various orchestras including the Orchestra Filarmonica Mediterranea, Exeter University Symphony Orchestra with Richard Gonski and the Bristol Symphony Orchestra. Since 2019, Francesca has taught piano at King’s College London.
Francesca studied solo piano performance at the Academy with Professor Joanna MacGregor and Diana Ketler, and was also an Open Academy Fellow. Francesca subsequently obtained a Postgraduate diploma in piano performance with world renowned pianist Lilya Zilberstein at the MdW in Vienna, Austria.