Francesco Verrecchia

Francesco Verrecchia, a Montreal native, was born in a family of musicians of Italian origin. He began learning to play guitar at the age of 14. Two years later, he joined his father’s group and walked on the stage for the first time as a guitarist and singer. During this time, he learned a wide variety of musical styles and his versatility will serve him later when recording jingles for the radio and television. At the dawn of the new millennium, he joined Garou and became his vocalist and guitar player. This collaboration will continue for three tours across Europe. At the same time, he contributed to Isabelle Boulay’s album “Ses Plus Belles Histoires” and participated in two television programs in France as a backup singer for Celine Dion.

In the late '90s, he started classical singing lessons at the Scala in Milan with his uncle Aldo Verrecchia. He continued to study with the opera singer Hugette Tourangeau, and he attended master classes given by tenor Ermanno Mauro. It complemented his intensive training at the prestigious Bayerische Staatsoper of Munich under the direction of Klaus Salmaan, then assistant maestro Zubin Mehta. Even today, he continues to perfect his art through education provided by the tenors Manrico Tedeshci, and the pianists Louise-Andrée Baril and Janice Lachance.

In 2003, he shared the stage with Johnny Hallyday as a vocalist for the stadium tour and for the “Closer to You” tour. For the second tour, Johnny Hallyday asked him to interpret Caruso on every show of the tour. For the first time, the French rocker gave the stage to another vocalist so he could perform a song. Throughout this series of shows, more than 300,000 people in forty different European cities discovered his talent.

Among the list of Francophone artists with whom he worked with over the years, we find the names of Alain Souchon, Natascha St-Pier, and Mario Pelchat. He aslo worked with Bruno Pelletier and accompanied him on different tours in Russia and Ukraine. While having a career in popular music, he invested a lot of time to develop his strengths in order to have a parallel career as an opera singer. In 2006, he won the title of Quebec's most promising Tenor presented by “Les Jeunesses Musicales du Canada”. This award gave him the chance to win many engagements, which he performed in different registers. He attended the Vermont International Opera Festival and the Opera of Rimouski.

In 2008, he personified Edgardo in “Lucia di Lammermoor”, Donizetti’s masterpiece. It was presented at the Opera Slaska in Poland. It was also presented in the Netherlands, in Belgium, and at the Salt March Opera in Connecticut. During the same year, he also visited Ontario and performed Rossini’s “Pettie Messe Solennelle”, “The Messiah”, and Puccini’s “The Messa di Gloria”.

More recently, the “Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières” presented for the first time in its history the famous opera Carmen by Bizet, in a concert version. Under the direction of Jacques Lacombe, Francesco there played the famous Don José.

Since 2013 Francesco is also part of the comedy group “Les Drôles de Ténors” with Steve Diamond and Michael Rancourt.