Andrea Lucchesini

Andrea Lucchesini’s performance leaves an indelible mark. (…) A very pure talent, he impresses with his precision and purity, no less than with the maturity of his interpretative style, which combines strength and sensitivity, freshness and rigour in a balance that seems rare indeed. (Music)

He came to international attention by winning the Dino Ciani International Competition of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1983, at only eighteen years of age. He was the youngest among 25 participants from all over the world, and his victory marked the beginning of his international activity and record production with EMI International, which in a few years released four solo discs with works by Liszt, Chopin and Beethoven.

The son of art, Andrea Lucchesini was accepted at only six years of age into the class of the famous pianist Maria Tipo at the Florence Conservatory, receiving a severe musical education thanks to the great Neapolitan artist’s teaching.

His collaboration with major orchestras around the world has been constant over the years, and so Lucchesini plays with some of the most celebrated conductors of our time: Claudio Abbado, Semyon Bychkov, Daniele Gatti, Riccardo Chailly, Yurij Temirkanov, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Dennis Russell Davies, Charles Dutoit, Zubin Mehta, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Yehudi Menhuin, Giuseppe Sinopoli and Theodor Guschlbauer.

His pianistic activity is wide-ranging and celebrated, and is marked by a desire to explore music without limitations: for this he received recognition from European musicologists, who in 1994 awarded him – the only Italian musician alongside artists such as Gidon Kremer, Evgenij Kissin and Andras Schiff – the Accademia Chigiana International Prize.

Beginning in 1990, Andrea Lucchesini also devoted himself to chamber music, starting with a close collaboration with cellist Mario Brunello: the feeling between the two musicians was immediate and materialised in a long and celebrated artistic partnership, while Lucchesini’s chamber music passion expanded to explore the most diverse areas of the ensemble repertoire with illustrious partners.

It was also in the early 1990s that he met Luciano Berio, who offered Lucchesini his debut at the PROMS in London with his Concerto II Echoing curves for piano and two instrumental groups, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Concerts in major theatres around the world followed, and finally the recording for BMG with the London Symphony Orchestra and Luciano Berio on the podium. The collaboration with the composer continued until Berio’s death (2003): with him Lucchesini saw the birth of Sonata, the last, grandiose piano work, and performed it in its world premiere in 2001 at the Tonhalle in Zurich and in its Italian premiere at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. The tribute to the memory of the great composer is the complete recording of Berio’s piano works for AVIE Records, which soon became a reference edition.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Lucchesini undertook the complete performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 32 Sonatas in eight concerts. A precious record of this project remains in eight CDs published by Stradivarius, which received an enthusiastic reception all over the world and the recognition of ‘disc of the month’ by Fonoforum.

Grateful for the musical gifts he received – his father’s talent and a great piano school to grow up in – Andrea Lucchesini returned them from a very young age through teaching. He takes up the legacy of Maria Tipo’s masterclass at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole and honours numerous invitations to hold masterclasses all over the world, from the Mozarteum in Salzburg to the International Keyboard Festival in New York. He also accepts invitations from the Moritzburg Festival, the Rome Music Chamber Festival, Krzyżowa-Music and the European Chamber Music Academy in Shanghai, where the joy of playing together increases in the meeting of generations.

An Academician of Santa Cecilia since 2008, Lucchesini took over the artistic direction of the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole in the same year, at the invitation of its founder Piero Farulli. Since 2018, he has been conducting the Accademia Filarmonica Romana and passionately takes care of its seasons until 2021, receiving in 2023 the appointment as Accademico Filarmonico. Since 2022 he has been artistic director of the Amici della Musica di Firenze: 40 years after his Florentine debut, Andrea Lucchesini gives his contribution of ideas to the cultural life of the city where he has chosen to live since 1991.

His concert activity continues in recitals, chamber music concerts and solo concerts with prestigious orchestras, from Latin America to Japan, from the United States to China, together with conductors such as Vladimir Jurowski, Daniel Harding, Manfred Honeck, Gianandrea Noseda, John Axelrod, Nicola Luisotti, Lorenzo Viotti.
In recent years, Lucchesini has been enthusiastically immersing himself in Franz Schubert’s production, recording the last, great Sonatas for AUDITE. Crescendo Magazine wrote this after the publication of the second volume: ‘Andrea Lucchesini signe ici un superbe CD; il vient se placer parmi les plus éloquents témoignages schubertiens de notre temps. Le troisième volume est attendu avec une patiente impatience”.