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Luigi Piovano was awarded his cello diploma with top marks cum laude at seventeen, having studied with Radu Aldulescu, and went on to graduate also in cello and chamber music from the European Conservatoire in Paris.
For several years he played in the Michelangelo Quartet and was first cello in the Concerto Italiano ensemble, under Rinaldo Alessandrini. In 1999 he was selected by Maurizio Pollini to take part in the “Progetto Pollini” at the Salzburg Festival, with repeat performances at Carnegie Hall, in Tokyo and in Rome. He has appeared regularly at the Newport Festival (USA).
He has given chamber music concerts with artists of the calibre of Maurizio Pollini, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Myung-Whun Chung, Alexander Lonquich, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Leonidas Kavakos, Veronika Eberle, Katia and Marielle Labeque, Nikolay Lugansky and Malcolm Bilson. Since 2007 he has appeared regularly in duo with Antonio Pappano and from 2009-2019 played with the Latitude 41 Trio.
He has made solo appearances with leading orchestras around the world – Tokyo Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Seoul Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal – under the baton of such conductors as Chung, Nagano, Pletnev, Boreyko, Menuhin, Bellugi.
In 2018 he toured Japan to rapturous applause playing Isang Yun’s Concerto with the Japan Philharmonic at Suntory Hall, Dvořák’s Concerto with the Kyoto Symphony conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti and the Saint-Saëns Concerto with the Hyogo PAC Orchestra.
Upcoming engagements include concerts in duo with Antonio Pappano in Essen and Florence and Tchaikovsy’s Variations on a Rococo Theme in Rome with l’Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia.
He has been the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia’s first principal cello soloist for more than twenty years.
Recent recordings include the six Bach Suites, Saint-Saëns’ complete works for cello and, with Latitude 41, a CD of music by Schubert and two trios by Saint-Saëns, all for Eloquentia. In 2012 Nimbus released Piovano’s recording of the Goldberg Variations for string trio with Dmitry Sitkovetsky and Yuri Zhislin.
In September 2020, for the Arcana label, Antonio Pappano and Luigi Piovano released their first CD in duo together playing the two Brahms Sonatas and the Romanze op. 72 by Martucci.
Luigi Piovano plays a cello Francesco Ruggeri “detto il Per” (Cremona, 1692) on generous loan from Francesco Micheli.
Since 2002 Piovano has dedicated more and more time to conducting. Since 2012 he has been Musical Director of the Orchestra ICO della Magna Grecia in Taranto and has collaborated regularly with the Archi di Santa Cecilia, with whom he has already made 6 CDs.
Upcoming new projects include Tosca from the podium at the Teatro Bellini, Catania in 2021, and a concert conducting the Mozarteum, Salzburg, in 2022.
Apart from his wide repertoire as a soloist with symphony orchestra and referring to the Piovano-Pappano duo’s page for his programs with piano, Luigi Piovano is always performing in concert the 6 Cello Suites by Bach: both the complete set in two evenings – it’s worth it to remind that Mr.
Piovano performs Sixth Suite with a five stringed cello, as written by Bach – or an anthological concert with 2 or 3 Suites.
In both cases some short contemporaries pieces – as, for example, the wonderful La voce, by Louis Andriessen, written on a poem by the Italian poet Cesare Pavese – can be interposed between two Suites.