The Fryderyk Chopin Piano Concertos

Described by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as an "aristocrat of the piano", Luigi Carroccia has won numerous prizes in National and International Competitions, including the "Virtuoso Prize" at the Vendome Piano Prize held during the 2019 Verbier Festival and the "Premio Abbado" organized by the Italian Ministry of Culture in memory of Claudio Abbado. He also distinguished himself at the "Cliburn Competition" in Fort Worth, the "Ferruccio Busoni Competition” in Bolzano and the “Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition” in Warsaw where he received enthusiastic praise from both critics and musicians such as K. Zimerman and M. Argerich. Luigi undertook his musical studies under the guidance of his father and grandfather, both musicians. His artistic maturation then continued at the “C. Monteverdi” of Bolzano where he obtained his Piano Degrees with full marks and honor. In 2016 he received a Junior Fellowship from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and from 2018 to 2022 he was Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Waterloo. His concert activity has seen him regularly engaged in Italy and abroad for festivals such as the Duszniki International Chopin Piano Festival, the Miami International Piano Festival, the Dresdner Musikfestspiele and in halls such as the Ishibashi Memorial Hall of the University of Tokyo, Flagey in Brussels, the Symphony Hall and Town Hall in Birmingham, the Sale Apollinee of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Museo Teatrale alla Scala in Milan and the Salle Bourgie in Montreal.

The Mantova Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1981 and immediately attracted general attention for its technical brilliance, assiduous search for sound quality and sensitivity to stylistic problems. In 1997, Italian music critics awarded it with the “Franco Abbiati” Award as the best chamber music ensemble. Over the course of its forty-year artistic life, the Orchestra has collaborated with some of the most esteemed conductors and soloists on the international scene, including Isabelle Faust, Kent Nagano, Leonidas Kavakos, Steven Isserlis, Maria Joao Pires, Gidon Kremer, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Alexander Lonquich, Giovanni Sollima, Shlomo Mintz, Joshua Bell, Viktoria Mullova, Salvatore Accardo, Giuliano Carmignola, Mischa Maisky, Enrico Dindo, Mario Brunello, Miklos Perenyi, Sol Gabetta, Bruno Canino, Katia and Marielle Labeque, Maria Tipo, Veronika Eberle, Andrea Lucchesini, Barnabas Kelemen and the unforgettable Astor Piazzola, Severino Gazzelloni and Aldo Ciccolini. Protagonist of countless concerts in Italy and abroad, the Mantova Chamber Orchestra performs in the main halls of most European countries, the United States, Central and South America, and Asia. The Orchestra's activity is characterized, in particular, by the creation of monographic cycles ("Beethoven Project", 2002-2004, under the direction of Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli; "The Piano Concertos of W. A. Mozart", 2004, with Alexander Lonquich; "The Sacred Production of W. A. Mozart", 2004-2007, again under the guidance of Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli; “Haydn the European who loved Italy”, 2007-2009; Pagina 6“Schumann's Symphonies”, 2010). The Mantova Chamber Orchestra has recorded, among others, for Rai, Bayrischer Rundfunk, Rsti, Orf, Npo Radio 4, Hyperion. Since 1993, it has been involved in relaunching the musical activities of the city of Mantova through the "Tempo d'Orchestra" concert season.

After graduating with top marks and honors, Filippo Lama embarked on a specialization course with renowned masters such as Corrado Romano, Paolo Borciani, Franco Rossi, Franco Gulli and Enrica Cavallo.

Since 2014 he has been a violin tutor and concertmaster of the Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza.

Since the early 1980s he has collaborated with the Orchestra of the International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo, where he was concertmaster and soloist for about ten years.

He also holds the same role with various other prestigious instrumental ensembles – Mantua Chamber Orchestra, “Arturo Toscanini” Orchestra of Parma, I Pomeriggi musicali of Milan – with which he has performed in important halls in Europe and America.
In particular, from 1996 to 2006 he was concertmaster and soloist of the “G. Donizetti” Orchestra of Bergamo. Since 2007 he has been artistic director and Konzertmeister of the Brescia Chamber Orchestra.

He has collaborated with artists on the international scene, including Alexander Lonquich, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Paolo Bordoni, Antonio Ballista, Bruno Canino, Enrico Bronzi, Dora Schwarzberg, Wolfram Christ, Pavel Berman, Giovanni Angeleri.

He dedicates a good part of his artistic activity to chamber music. As a violin-piano duo he has won various national and international competitions, and, over the course of over twenty years of his career, he has held numerous concerts for important festivals and musical societies, proposing a vast sonata repertoire that ranges from Mozart to Grieg, from Schumann to Frank, from Beethoven to Brahms, from Haydn to Debussy, from Mendelssohn to Ravel, from Poulenc to Hindemith.

In 2009, together with cellist Stefano Guarino and pianist Riccardo Zadra, he founded the Hèsperos Piano Trio with which he regularly performs concerts for important concert societies.
Alongside his concert activity, he also teaches: since 1982 he has held the chair of violin at the “Luca Marenzio” Conservatory in Brescia.

Filippo Ghidoni was born in Brescia in 1997. Introduced to music from a very young age, he began his musical studies at the SIEM Association under the guidance of Antonio Giacometti, Mauro Montalbetti and Silvia Micheletti. Graduated (old system) with Honors in Violin in 2019 at the L. Marenzio Conservatory of Brescia under the guidance of M. Filippo Lama, in 2022 he obtained the second level academic Diploma in Violin with Honors and Honorable Mention.

He immediately combined his violin activity with the study of singing. In 2016 he was applauded as a soloist at the Teatro Grande in Brescia in Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, under the guidance of M. Silvio Baracco.

In 2017 he recorded a disc together with important artists as part of the publication of Lorenzo Perosi's unpublished Profane Compositions. In 2020 he took part in the Summer Season of the Teatro Grande in Brescia as a baritone soloist in The Barber of Seville. He takes part every year, as a member of the choir of the Accademia della Scala, in various productions of the Teatro alla Scala, in the season of the Theater and on tour in Saudi Arabia and China. He currently studies with the bass Paolo Battaglia.

As a violinist, in 2019 he was eligible, second place overall, in the auditions for the Orchestra of the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. In 2021 he was a finalist in the Rizzardo Bino competition for lyric voices; in 2022, as a violinist of the Trio Lindenbaum, he obtained the second absolute prize at the Gasparo da Salò Competition. He is the first violin of the Siegfried Quartet, winner of the 2022 Abbiati Prize of the Italian Music Critics. In 2023 he was the winner of the OCM Academy call promoted by the Mantua Chamber Orchestra.

With the OCMA Quartet, born during this experience, he participated in the Trame Sonore Festival and the International Chamber Music Festival in West Cork, and he perfected his skills at the Pinerolo Academy of Music with Lukas Hagen and Carlo Fabiano. He has performed in chamber groups for various festivals such as the Bologna Festival, Musikamera in Venice, Amici della Musica in Ancona, Festival Internazionale di Musica in Savona, L’Hera della Magna Grecia, Firmamento Musicale in Como, Amici del Quartetto in Reggio Emilia. At orchestral level, he has collaborated with the OTO, Colibrì Ensemble, Euritmus-Orchestra delle Alpi, the Orchestra Filarmonica Settenovecento of Rovereto (of which he has also covered the role of concertmaster and first part of the second violins several times), L’Appassionata, I Virtuosi Italiani, Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, Camerata Ducale, and, in Brescia, with the Orchestra da Camera di Brescia, of which he is vice-president. In recent years, with the OCB, he has contributed to the realization of the chamber music festival Universo Musica, which has seen the participation of nationally and internationally renowned figures in the classical music scene (Laura Marzadori, Quartetto Indaco, Quartetto Werther, Enrico Bronzi, Andrea Bressan).

She began studying viola at a very young age at the "G. Donizetti" Conservatory in Bergamo and, in 2022 and 2024, she obtained the first and second level diplomas at the "G. Verdi" Conservatory in Turin under the guidance of Mauro Righini, both with top marks and honors. She is currently continuing her studies at the Hochschule in Trossingen with Muriel Razavi. She also studied with Maestro Bruno Giuranna at the "Walter Stauffer" Academy in Cremona.

She has collaborated with various chamber ensembles and orchestras, including the Orchestra and Philharmonic of the Teatro Regio in Turin, the Turin Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari, the Mantua Chamber Orchestra, the Ensemble Locatelli and the Orchestra of the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, always combining orchestral activity with chamber music.

In 2022 she won the audition as a full member of the Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza and was also selected for the orchestral training course of Obiettivo Orchestra, proving suitable for the Filarmonica del Teatro Regio in Turin.

In 2024 she was the winner of the OCM Academy call, promoted by the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, while with the Ensemble Nuovi Orizzonti she won the "Café Bauhaus" award, promoted by the EUYO Orchestra.

Leonardo Notarangelo was born in 2000 into a family of musicians and graduated in Cello in 2018 with top marks and honors at the "Santa Cecilia" Conservatory of Music in Rome in the class of Dante Cianferra. His meeting with Maestro Giovanni Gnocchi was crucial to his career, under whose guidance he continued his studies, first in the advanced classes in Fiesole (Fiesole Music School) and Bologna (Bologna Philharmonic Academy) and from 2020 in the II level Master at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, which he completed in 2023 with top marks. Founder of the Elsa Quartet (2014-2019), he trained at the Stauffer Academy in Cremona, participating in the "Le Dimore del Quartetto" project and winning numerous competitions including the "Piero Farulli" prize at the "Crescendo" competition in Florence.

Awarded in national and international competitions, among these are the First Prize at the 2018 Riviera Etrusca Competition in Piombino and the First Absolute Prize in his category at the "Crescendo" Prize in Florence 2022, in addition to the Special Prize "Sorgentone-Mecatti" awarded to the best cellist of the edition. In the year 2023/2024 he attended the Second Level Master in Chamber Music at the Parma Conservatory with the René Piano Trio, under the guidance of the Trio di Parma, which he completed with top marks.

He has collaborated with numerous orchestras as first cello, such as the Italian Youth Orchestra (2018/2019), the Orchestra dell'Accademia della Scala, the Benevento Philharmonic Orchestra. In the year 2023/24 he is an academician at the Mantua Chamber Orchestra, as the only winner of the scholarship up for grabs.

Other collaborations include taking part in the orchestra of the Teatro della Fenice in Venice and the Orchestra Regionale della Toscana as a concertino, in the Fil of Milan, the Haydn Orchestra of Trento and Bolzano, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. He plays a cello Loeiz Honoré of Cremona from 2016.

Alessandro Schillaci, born in Catania in 1985, began his musical studies at a young age, first dedicating himself to the study of classical guitar and then, under the guidance of Maestro Sebastiano Nicotra, to that of the double bass. He continued his educational path with Maestro Daniele Roccato first at the Conservatory of Perugia, where he graduated with top marks and honors, and subsequently at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome where in 2013 he obtained the II Level diploma in Musical Disciplines with a grade of 110 and honors.

During his training years he attended several masterclasses in which he had the opportunity to improve with some of the most important instrumentalists and teachers in Italy, such as Antonio Sciancalepore and Giuseppe Ettorre.

In 2007 he participated in the chamber music competition of the 3rd International Voces Intimae Festival in Paola, finishing in first place. In the 2008-2009 season he took part in the courses of the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana (OGI) after having successfully passed the audition. During this period he had the opportunity to improve his orchestral repertoire with Maestros Alberto Bocini and Franco Petracchi. He is among the founding members of the Ensemble Ludus Gravis. The group, whose birth is linked to the figure of the double bass player and composer Stefano Scodanibbio, is dedicated to the diffusion and performance of contemporary repertoire for double bass ensembles. With this group he had the opportunity to play at prestigious contemporary music festivals such as: Musica d’Hoy (Madrid), Rassegna di Nuova musica (Macerata), Angelica and Bologna Modern (Bologna), Gaida festival (Vilnius), Music of Changes (Klaipeda), Imago Dei (Vienna), Lux Aeterna (Ambrugo), La biennale (Venice), Borealis (Bergen), Unicum (Ljubljana), Scarlatti Contemporanea (Naples), Ravenna Festival (Ravenna). He recorded Galina Ustwolskaja’s Dies Irae for eight double basses, piano and wooden cube for the Wergo label, conducted by Stefano Scodanibbio, and Stefano Scodanibbio’s octet for eight double basses for the ECM label. He played the first performances of works by Hans Werner Henze, Stefano Scodanibbio, Sofia Gubajdulina. In 2013 he was called to cover the role of first double bass in the Perugia Chamber Orchestra, where he had the opportunity to work with conductors and soloists such as Enrico Bronzi, Gemma Bertagnolli, Alexander Lonquich, Hugo Ticciati, Karl-Heinz Schutz and Tamas Varga.

In 2014 he joined the string orchestra “I Solisti Aquilani” as a principal double bass and with this formation he had the opportunity to collaborate with internationally renowned soloists such as Krysztof Penderecki, Mischa Maisky, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Mario Brunello and to study some of the cornerstones of the chamber music repertoire. He performed concerts in important Italian seasons: Serate Musicali (Milan), GOG (Genoa), IUC and Filarmonica Romana (Rome), Scarlatti (Naples), Amici della Musica (Palermo). At the May 2015 audition he was found suitable to cover the role of double bass in the Filarmonica “Arturo Toscanini” of Parma, an orchestra in which he was also called to cover, as an adjunct, the roles of concertino and first double bass.

In 2020 he began a two-year specialization at the "Bruno Maderna" conservatory of Cesena in ancient music. During this period he devoted himself to the study of performance practice on original instruments, concluding his studies with a thesis on Domenico Dragonetti.

He graduated in 2023 with a grade of 110 cum laude. He collaborates with various Italian orchestral groups as first double bass such as: Mantua Chamber Orchestra, "Il Colibrì" Pescara Chamber Orchestra, Sicilian Symphony Orchestra OSS and Gioacchino Rossini Philharmonic.