Born in Bari, Antonio Florio studied classical music, gaining his diploma in Violoncello, Pianoforte and Composition in the Conservatorio in Bari under Nino Rota. He went on to study early instruments and Baroque performing practice. In 1987 he founded the ensemble Cappella della Pietà de’ Turchini, and from then on devoted himself to giving concerts and pursuing his musicological research. He explored above all the repertory of 17^th and 18^th century Neapolitan music, reviving masterpieces which had never appeared in print, and then getting them put on in the major theatres and opera houses in Europe and Italy. Among the many works Florio has rediscovered we can mention La colomba ferita (1670), Il schiavo di sua moglie (1671) and Stellidaura vendicante (1674) by Francesco Provenzale; Il disperato innocente by Francesco Boerio (1673); La finta cameriera by Gaetano Latilla (1673); Li Zite’n galera by Leonardo Vinci (1722); il Pulcinella vendicato by Giovanni Paisiello (1767); La Statira by Francesco Cavalli (in the Neapolitan 1666 edition); Motezuma by Francesco De Majo (1765).
In 1999 and 2000 he conducted the Orchestra Reale della Galizia, Santiago de Compostela, in performances of La serva padrona and Stabat Mater by Giovan Battista Pergolesi.
His teaching activity has been no less intense: he has held seminars and masterclasses on Baroque vocality and chamber music for the Centre de Musique Baroque, Versailles, the Fondation Royaumont and the Toulouse Conservatoire. He is Honorary President and artistic director of the Centro di Musica Antica, Napoli, where he also holds the chair in Musica da camera at the Conservatorio “San Pietro a Majella”. Among his most recent engagements we can mention his revival of the opera La Partenope by Leonardo Vinci, published in 2004 and due to be staged this year in Spain in the Teatro di Ponferrada and Auditorio di León. In 2005 Antonio Florio was occupied reviving La finta giardiniera by Pasquale Anfossi, previously given in a double bill with the work by Mozart of the same name at the Fondation Royaumont, in concert form and subsequently staged, featuring in an international workshop. Then in 2006, he conducted the Cappella della Pietà dè Turchini in Festa Napoletana, first at the prestigious festival Anima Mundi, Pisa, and going on tour to China in four different venues. Also in 2006 Antonio Florio was awarded the First Prize in the Mousiké Festival of Early Music in the Mediterranean, Bari. During the 2007 concert season he appeared for the Accademia Chigiana, Siena, and Ravenna Festival, at the Centre Lyrique d’Auvergne, Clermont Ferrand and the Ravello Festival. In 2008 he conducted the opera Alidoro by Leo at the Teatro Valli, Reggio Emilia, and the Teatro Mercadante, Napoli. He has recently received two other prestigious awards: at Oviedo in Spain the prize “Luis Gracia Iberni”, equivalent of the Premio Abbiati in Italy, for the Best Musical Direction for the first modern performance of the opera Ottavia restituita al trono by Domenico Scarlatti, performed in San Sebastian in August 2007. Then in October 2008, with the Cappella della Pietà de’ Turchini, he was awarded the “Premio Napoli” in the section “eccellenze nascoste” of the city.