Rocco Filippini
was born in Lugano to a family of artists. His father was the painter Felice Filippini, and his mother, who was a pianist, started him off to music when he was just a child.

In 1964, after his musical studies under the guidance of Pierre Fournier, he won the Internazional Competition in Geneva, which immediately opened the way to his career. Being open to all musical experiences, he has put together a vast repertory which varies from eighteenth century music to contemporary music. In 1968 he formed the Trio di Milano (with Bruno Canino and Cesare Ferraresi - after his death with Mariana Sirbun leader of I Musici) and more recentky the Quartetto Accardo. He regularly plays with the pianist Michele Campanella. In the last few years he devoted himself a great deal to conducting. He has performed hundreds of concerts in the major capitals of Eurospe, America, Japan and Australia, playng in the most famous halls (La Scala of Milan, Albert Hall and Festival Hall of London, the Théatre des Champs Elisées of Paris, the Philharmonie of Berlin, the Musikverein of Vienna, the Herkules Saal of Munich, the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, Lincoln Center of New York, the Opera House of Sydney, etc.) as well as famous festivals (Lucerne, Spoleto, Marlboro - where he was invited many times by Rudolf Serkin - Edinburgh, Stresa, Pesaro, Salzburg - where he has performed with Maurizio Pollini - Jerusalem, Ravenna, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Helsinki, etc.) He also dedicates a great time to recordings. He has been elected member of the most famed Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Major modern composers have dedicated him their works, among them Luciano Berio, Franco Donatoni and Salvatore Sciarrino. In addition to teaching cello at the Milan Conservatory, he instituted with Salvatore Accardo, Bruno Giuranna and Franco Petracchi the courses of the Accademia Stauffer at Cremona, is a member of the Prague Mozart Academy directed by Sandor Vegh, and holds a great number of masterclasses (Hindemith Foundation in Blonay, Banff University, Orchestre des Jeunes de la Méditerranéé, Aix-en-Provence, Sermoneta, Città di Castello, etc.). His violoncello is the "Gore Booth" of Antonio Stradivari (1710). In 1997 he has been awarded by the Foundation of The Swiss Italian Bank for his contribution to the development of the cultural relations between Switzerland and Italy.

Michele Campanella
Internationally acclaimed as one of the major virtuoso interpreters of Liszt, three-time winner of the Grand Prix du Disque awarded by the prestigious Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest (1976, 1977 and 1998), the latter for his recording “Franz Liszt-The Great Transcriptions, I-II” (Philips), Michele Campanella has interpreted in over 45 years of career most of the major piano repertoire. He has been awarded the “Liszt high merit” medal by the Hungarian government in 1986 and the American Liszt Society Medal in 2002.

Trained at the Vincenzo Vitale School in Naples, Michele Campanella is a very versatile artist. This has enabled him to face composers like Clementi, Weber, Poulenc, Busoni (1980 “Italian Discographic Critic Award” for his Fonit Cetra recordings), Rossini, Brahms, Ravel and Liszt. He has recently recorded an anthology of Liszt paraphrases, the 12 Transcendental Studies, and a selection of works from the late period played on Liszt’s own original Bechstein piano. This is the first chapter of an important 12 CD series dedicated to Liszt that will be released under the “Brillant” label.

His discography includes recordings for Emi (Ravel), Philips (Liszt, Saint-Saëns), Foné (Chopin), PYE (Liszt, Tchaikovsky), Fonit Cetra (Busoni), Nuova Era (Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Mussorgsky, Balakirev), Musikstrasse (Rossini), P&P (Brahms, Liszt, Scarlatti) and Niccolò (Schumann). In 2005, the Rossini Opera Festival published a recording of the Petite Messe Solennelle in Pesaro, conducted by Michele Campanella.

Mr. Campanella has performed with the principal European and American orchestras (Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony) and collaborated with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Eliahu Inbal, Charles Mackerras, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Georges Prêtre, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Thomas Schippers, Hubert Soudant, Pinchas Steinberg and Christian Thielemann. He is frequently invited to Australia, Russia, the United Kingdom, Argentina, China, as well as being a regular guest at international festivals such as Lucerne, Vienna, Berlin, Prague and Pesaro (Rossini Opera Festival). Recent performance highlights include all Beethoven and Mozart concertos as well as the complete piano works by Brahms.

Together with Salvatore Accardo and Rocco Filippini he established an ideal musical partnership during the 1990’s for the chamber music repertoire. In the last years, Campanella’s career as conductor/soloist has been further developed performing with several prestigious Italian orchestras, such as the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome, the ORT-Orchestra della Toscana, the Orchestra da Camera di Padova e del Veneto, I Filarmonici di Verona, the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento. His repertoire includes works by Ravel, Fauré, Poulenc, Franck, Saint-Saëns, Schumann, Weber, Liszt, alongside Mozart and Beethoven.

A dedicated and passionate teacher, Campanella was head of the piano department at the Accademia Chigiana (Siena) from 1986 to 2010, as well as conducting advanced training courses for eight years in Ravello. He is the director of the Vincenzo Vitale Center for Piano Studies at the University Suor Orsola Benincasa of Naples. He has been celebrated by the prestigious “Premio Napoli” and “Guido e Roberto Cortese” foundations. He is also a member of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Accademia Filarmonica Romana and Accademia Cherubini di Firenze. For nine years he has been artistic director of three different concert seasons sponsored by the Naples, Benevento and Catanzaro Universities. He has recently been nominated artistic director of the “Maggio della Musica” festival in Naples. Since 2008 he has been President of the “Società Liszt”, the Italian chapter of the American Liszt Society.

In 2011, as the world celebrated the bicentenary of Franz Liszt's birth, Campanella dedicated his entire musical activity, both as pianist and conductor, to the Hungarian composer he studied and loved from the age of fourteen, engaging himself in a long series of solo concerts in Italy and abroad: Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Unione Musicale (Turin), Cini Foundation (Venice) for the Wagner Society, Verdi Conservatoire (Milan), San Carlo Theatre (Naples), Accademia Musicale Chigiana (Siena), L’Aquila, Piacenza, Cremona, Udine and Parma. As a part of the prestigious Ravenna Festival, acting as conductor/soloist together with the Luigi Cherubini Orchestra, Campanella performed in one single evening the complete Liszt piano and orchestra compositions.

His most important international engagements in 2011 included concerts in Buenos Aires, Tokyo (Tokyo Suntory Hall) and Chicago, where Campanella gave three performances of the Liszt Concerto No.1 for piano and orchestra together with Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as part of the Liszt bicentenary celebrations. In collaboration with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Campanella has conceived and directed a series of Liszt music marathons at the Parco della Musica in Rome, where the complete Liszt piano works were performed. A project like this (including the participation of seventy five Italian pianists) generated great interest since nothing of the kind had ever before been attempted.

In addition to his work as a musician, Campanella is also a writer. In 2011 his book “Il mio Liszt. Considerazioni di un interprete” was published by Bompiani. The book is the literary homage that Campanella has always wanted to dedicate to his beloved composer. In 2012 Michele Campanella received the prestigious prizes Premio Scanno and Premio Grotta di Tiberio for musical performance.

In 2013, the bicentenary of Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi, Campanella will be engaged in a long series of concerts dedicated to Franz Liszt’s Paraphrases, intended as a musical meeting place for both composers’ lives and work. A Special Edition 3CD set will be published by Brilliant Classics. Michele Campanella will tour Italy, Hungary, Spain, Russia, Germany, Croatia and China confirming his important role of Music Ambassador in the World.