Born in Milan, Aldo Bernardi attended courses of piano, composition, cello and graduated from the “G. Verdi” Conservatory in Milan.

He perfected his knowledge of the German symphonic repertoire with Karl Osterreicher (Claudio Abbado’s and Zubin Metha’s teacher) in Vienna Hochschule and of the Russian repertoire with Victor Fedotov (Valery Gergev’s teacher) at the Conservatory of St. Petersburg.

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He enjoyed the aid of Carlo Maria Giulini to deepen his musical interpretation.

 

As a very young man in the 1980s and 1990s, he served as a volunteer assistant to renowned conductors—such as Sir Georg Solti, Georges Prêtre, Carlo Maria Giulini, and Wolfgang Sawallisch—for numerous prestigious productions of Teatro alla Scala.

 

From 1985 to 1990, he conducted many concerts of Church music (Gloria by Vivaldi, Stabat Mater by Rossini and Pergolesi, Messiah by Haendel) and a selection of operas (Aida, La Forza del Destino, Don Carlos, Rigoletto, Traviata, Macbeth, Nabucco, Tosca, Butterfly, Carmen, Barbiere di Siviglia, Mosé, Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Flauto Magico, etc.)

In 1992 he participated in the IV edition of the “Rossini Academy” in Pesaro during the Rossini Opera Festival.

In September of the same year he taught, in collaboration with soprano Renata Scotto, at the 2nd Course of introduction to the Lyric Theatre, organized by the Ente Musicale of Nuoro and by the Sardinian Region.

In 1993 he conducted the “Milano Classica” Chamber Orchestra in a series of concerts by Mozart;

as well as the “Mozart a Milano” Orchestra in a concert held in Milan, Piazza del Duomo, which was broadcast live, worldwide, on RAI 1, (the most important Italian National Chanel), on the occasion of the 7th International Meeting for World Peace “Men and Religions”.

 

His international activity began in 1994, in the ex-Soviet Union, with the Moldavian Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir.

From January 1996 to December1998 he was the Principal Guest Conductor of the Moldavian Philharmonic State Orchestra.

In January 1996, in Japan, he conducted “Bohème” by G. Puccini, with the Hiroshima City Opera Orchestra and Choir, on the occasion of the centenary of the first performance of the opera.

In May 1997 he conducted the “Requiem Mass” by W.A. Mozart with the Milan Symphony Orchestra “G. Verdi” and the Canticum Novum Choir, in the Basilica of St. Ambrogio, on the occasion of the official celebrations for the XVI centenary of the death of the Patron Saint of the city.

In September 1998, he was invited to conduct Rigoletto by G. Verdi with the Moldavian State Opera House, the first Italian to be granted such a privilege. This took place during the IX edition of the prestigious International Festival of the Opera and Ballet Stars “Maria Biesu invites”. It must be underlined that the artists annually invited to the festival are the best from the most famous theatres of the Eastern Countries, such as Bolshoi in Moscow, the Sophia Opera theatre, the Opera House of Warsaw and Bucarest, the Kirov Theatre of St. Petersburg.

During the performance of a concert held in Brescia in 1998 with the “Ensemble Archi della Scala of Milan”, Aldo Bernardi recorded, for the Sipario Dischi label, Stabat Mater by G.B. Pergolesi and the concert in re Magg. for the cello and orchestra by F.J.Haydn. Successively the same recording of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater was broadcasted by RAI – RADIO 3 (the Italian National Chanel for classical music). Recently he conducted again the “Ensemble Archi della Scala of Milan” in Naples and in Rome performing extraordinarily beautiful music and earning the public’s enthusiasm.

In late 2011 he founded, becoming its music director, the Symphonic Orchestra of the Association Mozart Italy Milan made up of talented musicians, some of them coming from the best orchestras in Lombardy, among which that of the Teatro alla Scala and the Philharmonic Orchestra of La Scala.

He has recorded for Sipario Dischi, Da Vinci Classics, and NAXOS. Since 2024, he has been recording regularly for KICCO MUSIC. Most of the CDs and Box sets released by the aforementioned record labels can be listened to and purchased or downloaded from all major music platforms online (Spotify, Qobuz, Apple Music, and Amazon Music).
Since 2011, Aldo Bernardi was appointed President and Artistic Director of the Association Mozart Italy Milan, affiliated to the Mozarteum in Salzburg, which had already been responsible for the artistic program from 1994 to 2000. On March 21, 2013, within all 'AMI-Milan founded and chairs the CEriMus: "National Italian Committee for Education Returning basic music in every grade school is (r)."

From 2013 with the Orchestra of the Association Mozart Italy Milan annually produces regular concert seasons in the historic church of San Marco in Milan enjoying success with audiences and critics.
Abroad he regularly especially the Italian operatic repertoire (Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini) but also symphonic and symphonic-choral sacred music, mainly in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Japan and the United States.

To conducting alternating that of cellist playing in various chamber ensembles (trios, quartets). He had teached cello and ensemble music for strings for 30 years, at the High italian State School musical "Carlo Tenca" in Milan in collaboration with Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Milan.