Andrea Lucchesini, piano

Music by Berio, D. Scarlatti, and Schubert

Co-sponsor: Italian Cultural Institute of New York

Free admission; reservations are not required (seating is first come, first seated; doors open at 7:30 PM).

This recital by Andrea Lucchesini, co-sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, celebrates the release on the Audite label in September 2018 of the CD “Dialogues (Scarlatti & Berio / Schubert & Widmann)”: https://play.audite.de/dialogues

Trained under the guidance of Maria Tipo, Andrea Lucchesini garnered international recognition at a very young age when he won the “Dino Ciani” International Competition at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Since then he has performed throughout the world with leading orchestras, working with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Semyon Bychkov, Roberto Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Dennis Russell Davies, Charles Dutoit, Daniele Gatti, Gabriele Ferro, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Daniel Harding, Vladimir Jurowski, Gianandrea Noseda and Giuseppe Sinopoli. In December 2015 he returned to Teatro La Scala with Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, under the baton of Franz Welser Moest.

His wide-ranging activities, marked by a desire to explore music with no limitations, lead him to offer programs ranging from classical to current repertoire. In 1994 this earned him the recognition of European musicologists from which he received the Accademia Chigiana International Prize (the only Italian honored with it so far). The following year he won the F. Abbiati Prize, which confirmed the appreciation of the Italian critics.

Mr. Lucchesini has made several recordings, the first few of which date back to the 1980s for EMI International (Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, Beethoven’s Sonata op.106 Hammerklavier and Chopin’s Sonata op.58). He then recorded Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Berg’s Chamber Concerto for Teldec with the Dresden Staatskapelle conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli.
For BMG he recorded Luciano Berio’s Concerto Echoing Curves, conducted by the composer. This marked one of the milestones of a close collaboration with Berio, with whom Lucchesini witnessed the creation of the composer’s final and challenging work for solo piano, Sonata. Mr. Lucchesini performed the world premiere of this piece in 2001 which – together with all of Berio’s other piano works – became part of a CD for AVIE Records, which met with unanimous international critical acclaim. Equally appreciated is Mr. Lucchesini’s live recording of Beethoven’s complete cycle 32 sonatas for Stradivarius. The collective work obtained the recognition of “CD of the month” by the prestigious German magazine Fonoforum in 2004. His recent recording, the Schubert Impromptus made for AVIE Records, received an enthusiastic response from critics worldwide. In September 2018 the German label Audite will release a new CD, Dialogues, with music of Scarlatti/Berio and of Schubert /Widmann.

Recently Andrea Lucchesini appeared at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under the baton of Fabio Luisi, in Roma with Santa Cecilia Orchestra and Wyung Whun Chung and in Torino with the RAI Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russel Davies. Since 1990, he has dedicated his attention to chamber music as well, including a collaboration (performing and recording) with cellist Mario Brunello and Quartetto di Cremona.

Mr. Lucchesini teaches at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole, where he was artistic director from 2008 until 2016. He is frequently invited to hold masterclasses at major music institutions in Europe, such as the Musik Hochschule in Hannover and the Sommer Wasserbuger Festspiele and Musik Hochschule in Salzburg and in New York. He serves on juries at numerous piano competitions all over the world and was named Accademico of Santa Cecilia in 2008.

From the Italian Academy at Columbia University.