Luigi Piovano & Archi di Santa Cecilia
Biography Luigi Piovano & Archi di Santa Cecilia
Archi dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia
The Orchestra was the first in Italy to concentrate exclusively on the symphonic repertoire. Since 1908, it gave around 15 000 concerts, collaborating with the most important musical figures of the twentieth century and was conducted, among others, by Mahler, Debussy, Strauss, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Sibelius, Toscanini, Furtwängler, De Sabata and Karajan.
Bernardino Molinari, Franco Ferrara, Fernando Previtali, Igor Markevitch, Thomas Schippers, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Daniele Gatti e Myung-Whun Chung were stable conductors and Leonard Bernstein was Honorary President from 1983 to 1990. Thanks to Maestro Antonio Pappano, Music Director since 2005, the prestige of the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia has gained extraordinary momentum and international recognition both during the numerous tours, both for recordings. After a long association with some of the most famous international, under the baton of famous directors like De Sabata, Solti, Maazel, Schippers, Giulini, Sinopoli, Bernstein, Gatti e Chung, the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia boasts an exclusive relationship with EMI Classics (now Warner Classics). Among the most recent publications directed by Sir Antonio Pappano, remember the Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, the Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony, the Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle and Britten’s War Requiem. Chamber music was always one of the activities of the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia; in recent years has acquired even greater importance and the musicians of the Orchestra regularly form different ensembles. After the great success, in 2013, of the debut in the chamber season of Santa Cecilia, the String Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia launched a permanent collaboration under the baton of Luigi Piovano, first cello soloist of the Orchestra. In 2014 the ensemble made its first concert appearances in Italy (Ravello Festival, Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna, Teatro Comunale in Carpi…), which were unfailingly extremely successful, and the French label Eloquentia issued the first CD of the group under Piovano’s baton with the same program of the debut concert: Sonata “Arpeggione” transcribed for cello and string orchestra by Luigi Piovano (here performing as a soloist too) and Quartet “Death and the Maiden” transcribed for string orchestra by Gustav Mahler. The CD has been highly praised by international press: Ralph Moore, writing on “MusicWeb International” about the performance of Schubert-Mahler described it as «mesmerising, intense, thrilling and liberated in a way too few recordings are these days. The Presto finale is simply marvellous», meanwhile David Vernier wrote on “Classics Today”: «the concluding fourth-movement Presto is an impressive display of ensemble virtuosity». In 2015 their concert at the Auditorium in Rome, this time in the Sala Santa Cecilia playing the two Serenades by Dvořák and Tchaikovsky was equally well-received and immediately thereafter a recording was made for a new Eloquentia CD. Concerts followed at the Festival Pontino and in other Italian towns as L’Aquila, Naples, Reggio Emilia, Piacenza and then once again in the Sala Santa Cecilia in Rome with a program devoted to the music of Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone and Nicola Piovani which this year became the third CD of the group released by Arcana label. During Spring 2018 Mr. Piovano and the String Orchestra of S. Cecilia will be joined by some winds (under the name of Accademia di Santa Cecilia Chamber Orchestra) for a concert and a recording of Mozart Concertos with Ingrid Jacoby as a soloist, meanwhile Sony will be issuing a new CD of the group devoted to Vivaldi.
Luigi Piovano
Principal cellist of the Symphony Orchestra of National Academy of St. Cecilia in Rome, Luigi Piovano has been enjoying a constantly growing international recognition both as a cellist and as a conductor. His rapidly expanding career has placed him as soloist under the batons of such conductors as Chung and Pletnev – performing with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra – Menuhin, Boreyko and Payare, among others. Luigi Piovano first attracted attention on the international music circuit after his participation in the “Pollini Project” in 1999, which brought forth a highly-successful debut at the Salzburg Festival, as well as performances in Tokyo, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Rome. In addition to regular concerts and recitals throughout Europe, the United States and Asia, as an avid and sought-after chamber musician, he has taken part in numerous prominent collaboration with such celebrated artists as Pollini, Chung, Sawallisch, Sitkovetsky, Kavakos, Ehnes, Bilson, Lugansky, the Labèque sisters and Antonio Pappano, with whom has been regularly performing in duo setting since 2007. He regularly performs with piano trio “Latitude 41”. He made his Newport Music Festival debut in 2000 and has been a regular invitee ever since. His most recent recordings include Bach Six Cello Suites, the complete music for cello of Saint-Saëns, Schubert Trio op. 100 and the complete Trios of Saint-Saëns with Latitude 41, all for the French label Eloquentia, and Bach’s Goldberg Variations with Dmitry Sitkovetsky for Nimbus. Among his most recent engagements as a soloist, duo recitals with Sir Antonio Pappano, the debuts with Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra under Myung-Whun Chung and with Montréal Symphony Orchestra under Kent Nagano performing Brahms Double Concerto together with Veronika Eberle, the world première of Péter Zombola new Cello Concerto in Budapest a chamber music program with Dmitry Sitkovetsky at the Penderecki Festival in Poland. Among his forthcoming engagements, Isang Yun Cello Concerto with Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and concerts with Kyoto Symphony Orchestra under Gianluigi Gelmetti and Hyogo PAC Orchestra under Jesus Lopez Cobos. Luigi Piovano at age seventeen graduated cum laude upon finishing his studies with celebrated cellist and pedagogue Radu Aldulescu. He then went on to receiving a diploma in cello performance and chamber music from the European Conservatoire of Music in Paris. Mr. Piovano plays an Alessandro Gagliano dated 1710. After the year 2000 Luigi Piovano has been increasingly engaging himself as a conductor, and has held the post of Artistic Director and Conductor of the Musici Aurei since founding the ensemble in 2002 (under the name of “Campania Chamber Orchestra”). With the ensemble he toured Japan and recorded Paisiello’s piano Concertos for Naxos label (2009), Vivaldi Four Seasons with Grazia Raimondi for Eloquentia (2010) and the chamber orchestra versions of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Sara Mingardo and Musici Aurei for Eloquentia which immediately won the Elizabeth Schwarzkopf Award from Académie du disque lyrique in France as best Lieder recording for 2012. Other engagements of note as a conductor include the Tokyo Philharmonic String Orchestra and the Seoul Philharmonic String Orchestra, concerts in Thailandia and with several Italian orchestras and the recording of Britten’s violin Concerto with the American violinist Livia Sohn. Notable collaborations from the podium have included such soloists as Francois-Joël Thiollier, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Ingrid Jacoby, Benedetto Lupo, Pietro De Maria, Giovanni Bellucci, Valeriy Sokolov, Livia Sohn, Maurizio Baglini, Vesselin Stanev and Sara Mingardo. In 2012 he has been appointed Music Director of the Orchestra della Magna Grecia in Taranto and in 2013 he became Music Director of the Roma Tre Orchestra in Rome. After the huge success in 2013 of his debut on the podium of Rome Accademia di Santa Cecilia String Orchestra he has been appointed Principal Conductor of the group. In 2014 Eloquentia issued a CD with Mr. Piovano conducting Santa Cecilia String Orchestra in a program of transcriptions from Schubert: the “Arpeggione” Sonata transcribed by Mr. Piovano and “The Death and the Maiden” transcribed by Mahler. In 2016 Eloquentia issued a second CD of the group performing Dvořák and Tchaikovsky Serenades under his baton. A third CD devoted to the music of Rota, Morricone and Piovani has been released by Arcana in October 2017. Among his most recent engagements as a conductor, concerts with many Italian orchestras (Orchestra Sinfonica Abruzzese, Orchestra del Teatro Petruzzelli di Bari, Orchestra del Teatro Bellini di Catania, Camerata Strumentale Città di Prato, Orchestra del Festival di Bergamo e Brescia…) in a wide repertoire including huge symphonic works and Concertos by Brahms, Čajkovskij, Mahler, Franck, Rimskij-Korsakov, Debussy, Ravel, Prokofiev and Britten and, abroad, the début on the podium of New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. His forthcoming engagements include his debuts with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Chamber Orchestra (for a concert followed by a recording) and with Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto and his fourth CD with Accademia di Santa Cecilia String Orchestra.
