Leonardo Pierdomenico
Pianist
Biography
A semi-finalist at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2016 and winner of the Jury Prize at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2017, Leonardo Pierdomenico is described as “a pianist with a highly developed technique and a refined sound” (Patrick Rucker, Gramophone UK).
At just 18 years old, he won first prize at the 28th edition of the “Premio Venezia” Piano Competition, held at the Teatro La Fenice. This victory marked the beginning of a collaboration with orchestras such as the Fort Worth Symphony, the Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, the Symphony Orchestra of the Teatro La Fenice, the LaVerdi Orchestra of Milan, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra, the North Czech Philharmonic, and with conductors such as Yves Abel, Diego Matheuz, Nicholas McGegan, Vahan Mardirossian, Fayçal Karoui, among others.
Leonardo has been invited to the most important concert halls and festivals in Italy and internationally, including: the Sala Verdi of the Milan Conservatory, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Salle Molière in Lyon, the Maison de la Radio in Paris, the Chopin Festivals in Paris and Nohant, the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, the Filharmonia Narodowa in Warsaw, Flagey in Brussels, the Liszt Festivals in Utrecht and Uchaux, the Bass Hall in Fort Worth (Texas), the Merkin Concert Hall in New York, the Qin’tai Concert Hall in Wuhan, the Bologna Festival, the Fazioli Concert Hall.
An eclectic artist, Leonardo makes his debut in the 2022/2023 chamber music season of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, with the Italian premiere of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms in Shostakovich’s arrangement for piano duo and choir.
During the 23/24 and 24/25 seasons, he also performed in the ballet season of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, performing works by Chopin and Grieg (concerto).
Passionate about rarities in the piano repertoire, he recorded Dvořák’s Piano Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra for the Brilliant Classics label, and personally arranged Respighi’s symphonic poem The Pines of Rome for solo piano, published by Da Vinci Publishing.
He has already released four albums on the Piano Classics label: his first disc, devoted to works by Franz Liszt, was hailed as Editor’s Choice by Gramophone UK magazine and nominated for Recording of the Year at the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (the prize of the Union of German Music Critics).
Born in Abruzzo, Italy, Leonardo studied at the Conservatory of Pescara, and in 2017 obtained his Master’s degree in piano with honors from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, in the class of M° Benedetto Lupo. In 2016, he received a scholarship to attend the Music Academy of the West in California, where he studied with Masters Jeremy Denk, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Jerome Lowenthal, Julian Martin and Leon Fleisher.
A keen chamber musician, Leonardo regularly plays in a duo with cellist Erica Piccotti.
Management: Worldwide except Italy
Photo credit : Alessandro Petrini/ Greta Burtini
Press
Italian pianist Leonardo Pierdomenico holds his large black emperor’s scepter in his hands, firmly fixed to the keyboard. Straightness and elegance are attached to his posture. He makes large backward gestures, as if to regain his balance, when he gives voice to the tutti. The sound, in the initial cadence, is deep and does not evaporate in the clouds of arpeggios. There is a certain panache in his way of attacking the final note of a solo, at the point of denouement of the cadence, a few nanoseconds before the orchestra. The passages are hammered out like a percussionist, while scales, arpeggios and modulating passages are clearly embedded in this molten metal.
Leonardo Pierdomenico’s piano playing also has its moments of half-tone, when he places the first note of his trill, with the simplicity of a swallow, then prowls it, moving faster and faster, to leave it with a lighter touch. He gives these moments of weightlessness so dear to Beethoven the inner shimmer of a luxurious powder compact, that small silver lake held in the palm of an elegant hand. The pianist sometimes adds a little blur to the arrival and departure of a line, angles of the music that he perhaps seeks to round off, calling upon his signature touch, airy and cottony. The orchestra then puts on its felt pads or lets out crackling alloys. The texture is made of fumaroles, embers under the ashes: furtive fanfares, work on the edge of sound, notably in the long funeral march of the Eroica, whose light and depths determine each other.
Florence Lethurgez, Classikeo (about the Beethoven concert (5th concerto) with the Toulon orchestra on 04/18/24
There’s a great deal of emotion here, but also an extreme lightness, which Pierdomenico embodies with his typical rhythmic motifs and wonderfully emphatic and beautifully sung melodic arcs.
The young Italian pianist’s fourth recording for Piano Classics is a brilliant achievement.
CD Concerto pour Piano d’Anton Dvorak
Czech Chamber Philharmonic Pardubice, dir : Vahan Mardirossian
Helmut Peters, Piano News ( Allemagne)/ interprétation 6/6
“The Carlos Kleiber of the piano”
Fanfare Magazine ( Beethoven/Liszt Symphony 5 and the Beethoven/Alkan 3rd Piano Concerto (PCL 10224)
“Die Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie und der italienische Pianist Leonardo Pierdomenico bringen das Publikum mit Mozart zum Schwärmen.
…“Kein Zweifel : Leonardo Pierdomenico am Flügel ist das absolute Herzstück in der Gunst des Publikums. Überhaupt nicht aufdringlich und auf Effekte heischend spielt der junge Pianist das Klavierkonzert zum Dahinschmelzen. So mancher Gast genießt das emotionale Erlebnis mit geschlossenen Augen.“Welchem Schwierigkeitsgrad er gewachsen ist, beweist Pierdomenico, als er den jubelnden Applaus mit einer Zugabe quittiert und dafür Frederic Chopins Etüde in C-Dur op. 10, Nr. 1 auswählt : Ein absolut schwindelerregender Wasserfall, mit dem er den Konzertgästen einen weiteren Höhepunkt serviert.”
Elke Niedringhaus-Haasper, Neue Westfälische 2019.
(…)His interesting programme spans Liszt’s career, with the early La romanesca composed in Paris, the Scherzo and March and two Ballades from the Weimar years, the St Francis Legends from 1860s Rome and the late Csárdás macabre from Budapest. Would that half the seasoned Lisztians I know had Pierdomenico’s keen ear for stylistic differentiation within this half-century of repertory. His highly developed technique and cultivated sound, both adaptable to a variety of affects, are wedded to those twin essentials for artistic Liszt-playing : imagination combined with thoroughgoing, scrupulous musicality.
His prodigious prestissimo leggiero, the ability to play extremely fast yet lightly, lends his Scherzo and March and Csárdás macabre quicksilver speed and tremendous power that never devolves into banging. His fioritura, that delicate filigree enhancement of melody used by Liszt and Chopin, envelops the D flat Ballade (No 1) with sensual charm and imbues ‘St Francis’s Sermon to the Birds’ with shimmering colours. La romanesca speaks with the chasteness of a Bartók folk-song transcription, maintaining its rustic simplicity through successive elaborations and embellishment. The exalted sound-painting of ‘St Francis Walking on the Waves’ is realised by Pierdomenico’s mastery of the ‘crescendo within crescendo’ effect, the scarcely perceptible pulling back at critical moments in an ostensibly seamless sound trajectory, unleashing huge volumes of sound that never exceed the resources of the piano. The B minor Ballade (No 2) occupies a vast canvas, though Pierdomenico avoids the overstated or melodramatic, opting instead for a heartfelt earnestness that creates a perfect symbiosis of the heroic and lyrical.
On the basis of his Liszt alone – and one may hear him in other repertoire on YouTube – I don’t hesitate to suggest that Pierdomenico is a musician of rare sensitivity and vision, and that following his further development will be a pleasure.
Patrick Rucker ( Gramophone)