Artistic Director prof. Alessandra Schettino

Luca Trabucco was born in Salerno in 1970; he started his musical studies in Genoa under the guidance of Claudio Proietti in piano and Adelchi Amisano in composition. Subsequently he specialized in piano performance at the “Incontri col Maestro” Imola Piano Academy with Lazar Berman, Alexander Lonquich, Boris Petrushanski, Riccardo Risaliti and Piero Rattalino. Winner of many international piano competitions (Venice, Treviso, Viotti-Valsesia, New Orleans and others), he performed all over the Europe, United States, Middle and Far East; Luca realized many recordings and CDs, including works especially composed for him. Through the years he focused on the XX century French repertoire and he played the whole works by Debussy and Ravel, authors of whom he’s considered a specialist. He’s oftentimes invited to hold masterclasses and to sit in the juries at international piano competitions. The municipality of Marineo in Sicily, place of early origins of his family, has awarded him with the City Keys for his artistic career in 2020.

Paolo Baglieri has brilliantly obtained the diploma of piano at the Conservatory “V. Bellini” of Catania. He continued his studies at the “Codarts – University of Arts” in Rotterdam and at the “Schola Cantorum” in Paris, concluding his studies with top marks. He obtained a second level degree in musical disciplines at the Conservatory “E. F. Dall’Abaco” of Verona with full marks and honors. He attended masterclasses with Pavel Gililov, Franco Scala, Benedetto Lupo, Boris Petrushansky and Sergio Perticaroli. In 2014 Paolo Baglieri is appointed director of the International Musical University Talent Music Master Courses in Brescia, of which he currently holds the position of President. Paolo Baglieri is considered one of the most prominent artistic personalities of his generation. Acclaimed as “a pianist who perfectly combines his personal vision with the composer’s intention”, he is the winner of numerous national and international piano competitions. He has performed in Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Austria, Germany, Israel, Chile in over 500 solo, chamber and orchestral concerts, in the most important concert halls such as the National Theatre of Jerusalem, the Centrum Beeldende in Amsterdam, Castel d’Ursel in Antwerp, Palazzo Biscari in Catania, Sala Manzoni in Pistoia, Circolo Ufficiali in Bologna, and many other cities such as Taormina, Lucca, Rome, Turin, Verona, Galeazza Castle, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Paris, Brussels, Haifa, Madrid, Santiago de Chile. Formerly a professor at the Conservatories of Music in Pavia and Siena, he was Principal Professor of piano, chamber music and piano literature at the Jerusalem State Conservatory in Israel. Currently he is Piano Professor at the Conservatorio “F. A. Bonporti” di Trento e Riva del Garda. He has given masterclasses all over around he world and is regularly invited to serve on the juries of some of the most important international piano competitions, such as Paderewski International Piano Competition, S. Cecilia International Piano Competition of Porto (Portugal), Olga Kern International Piano Competition (USA), Enschede, Campillos, Mayenne, Brussels, Brasov, Madrid, Yerevan, Clavicologne, Malta International Piano Competition, German Piano Open Competition in Berlin, Eurasian Music Games in Astana (Kazakhstan), International Music Competition Moscow Piano Open in Moscow, Transylvanian International Piano Competition in Brasov (Romania), Lyon International Piano Competition in Lyon (France), MozARTe International Piano Competition in Cologne (Germany). He is president of the International Music Academy Talent Music Master Courses, of the National Music Competition “Scuole in Musica” and of the International Music Prize “Laszlo Spezzaferri” of Verona.

After graduating from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts, she furthered her studies under Prof. Karl-Heinz Kammerling, Hans Leygraf and Bruno Mezzena. She won numerous national and international competitions (French Music Competition, Special Prize for the Performance of Contemporary Repertoire at the Contemporary Piano Music Competition in Spain, Contemporary Music Competition of the Japan Society for Contemporary Music). She has taken part in important festivals, such as ISCM World New Music Days, Suntory Summer Festival, etc., playing also numerous first performances. In addition to her work as a pianist, she composes and transcribes music for television programmes and commercials. She currently collaborates with renowned musicians, including conductor Giorgio Bernasconi, Alessandro Carbonare (clarinet), Elena Casoli (guitar), Ole Edvard Antonsen (trumpet) and the Prometeo Quartet. She has devoted special attention to Astor Piazzolla’s works, to whom her first solo albums are dedicated (Japan Victor). She is acclaimed not only as a classical and contemporary music pianist, but also as a tango and jazz music performer. In addition, she has gained worldwide acclaim for her recording of music for video games “FINAL FANTASY X. XIII, Piano Collection”. In 2004, she released the album “Tarkus & Pictures at an Exhibition”, dedicated to the works of Keith Emerson. In 2008, during the Spazio Musica festival in Cagliari, she performed the new composition by Sylvano Bussotti, “La Tastiera Poetica”. She has recorded 20 CDs, the last one in order of time entitled “Firebird” where he recorded Stravinsky’s “Firebird” transcribed by Guido Agosti, together with Eduard Steuemann’s transcription for solo piano of Schoenberg’s Kammersyphonie No.1, which was awarded 5 stars by BBC Music Magazine.
She is a committee member of the Japanese National Association of Piano Teachers “PTNA”, through which she holds over 20 seminars a year in various Japanese cities, during which, in addition to lessons for students, she also teaches piano methodology for piano teachers in Japan. She is also a professor of the advanced piano course at the Accademia Musicale Pescarese and her students are winners of numerous competitions, including: Concorso Internazionale Valsesia Musica, Pozzoli, IBLA Grand Prize, Luciano Luciani, Concorso Internazionale Pianoforte e Orchestra Città di Cantù. She is often invited as a jury member by the various competitions associated with the Alink-Argerich Foundation.

Bosnian pianist Azra Medić is active as a soloist, chamber musician and pedagogue.
The first steps of her musical education were in Zagreb and Sarajevo, where she finished her university studies with the award “The Best Student of the University in Sarajevo”. Her professors were Neda Stanković (studied with Leonid Brumberg and Dubravka Tomšić) and Boris Kraljević (studied with Lev Naumov). After studying in Sarajevo, she continued postgraduate at the Academy of Music in Zagreb with Đuro Tikvica (studied with Tatjana Nikolajeva and Boris Romanov), at the Academy of Music in Kassel with Ivan Urwalov, and at the University of Music in Freiburg with Elza Kolodin.
During her studies she won the best prizes at international competitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as many awards at international competitions in Russia (Moscow), Italy (Gorizia, Rome), France (Paris). Azra Medić took part in master classes with Christopher Taylor, Leslie Howard, Peter Feuchtwanger, Noel Flores, Martin Hughes, Rudolf Kehrer, Igor Khudolei, Diane Anderson, Markus Schirmer, Avedis Kouyoumdjan. After graduating in Freiburg in 2012, she started working at the Music Academy in Sarajevo, first as an assistant at the Piano department and from 2015 as an Associate professor. She has played numerous solo and chamber music concerts in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, Greece.  Her repertoire is very broad, ranging from baroque to contemporary music, including renowned Bosnian and Croatian composers. She actively gives masterclasses in music schools in Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as abroad. She is a regular jury member at state and international competitions

Bulgarian-born pianist Mirella Petrova began her musical education at the age of five at the “Professor Veselyn Stoyanov” music school in her native city of Russe. She gave her concert debut two years later with the Russe Philharmonic in a performance of Haydn’s Piano Concerto in C Major. In 1992, Ms. Petrova moved to Dresden, where she took up her studies with Professor Detlef Kaiser at the ‘Carl Maria von Weber’ College of Music. After successfully passing exams as pianist and educator, she completed a postgraduate course in piano ‘with distinction’, and a postgraduate course in chamber music with both Professor Kaiser and Peter Bruns. She developed as an artist through international master classes with Mikhail Wosskressenski, Klaus Hellwig, Karl-Heinz Kammerling, Detlef Kraus, Peter Rosel, Elza Kolodin, Christian Zacharias, Jacques Rouvier and Lazar Berman. She also expanded her knowledge of song composition by working with Olaf Bär, Gertrud Geissler and Semyon Skigin. Mirella Petrova has received many prizes in national and international competitions, such as the Usti nad Labem competition in the Czech Republic, the Maria Canals in Barcelona, Spain, and Konzerteum in Markopoulo, Greece. She was honored with the 1999-2000 DAAD Prize and received the Carl Maria von Weber scholarship award for music from the Art and Culture Foundation. Ms. Petrova has performed at festivals such as The Riga Music Festival in Latvia, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and Ruhr Piano Festival in Germany, and the Apollonia Festival of Arts, Varna Summer, and March Music Days festivals in Bulgaria. Her career has been documented through numerous radio and television recordings. Ms. Petrova has made guest appearances as a soloist under conductors such as Jörg-Peter Weigle, Naoshi Takahashi, Ivan Wulpe, and Aleksej Izmirliev. In addition to her solo concerts, Ms. Petrova has dedicated herself intensively to chamber music in a variety of areas, including piano duo, song duo, and chamber music with string instruments. She has undertaken concert tours in Greece, Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Spain, Japan and Turkey. In 2014, Ms. Petrova released a CD called “A Wagner evening in Graupa” as a soloist with the Elbland Philharmonic Orchestra in Saxony. In that same year, she played the Beethoven Triple Concerto along with Sayako Kusaka, violin, and Peter Bruns, cello. In the spring of 2015, this trio played again the Triple Concerto with the Presidential Symphony Orchestra in Ankara, Turkey. In addition to her extensive concert performances, Mirella Petrova has taught piano and chamber music at the ‘Carl Maria von Weber’ College of Music since 1997.