Francesca Leonardi

The celebrated violinist Salvatore Accardo has written, “Francesca Leonardi is a truly amazing pianist; she combines a pure and charming musicality and an infallible technique”.

Over the next two years she will be recarding the complete Beethoven violin sonatas for Deutsche Grammophone with her regular violin partner in the past nine years Francesca Dego, the first volume to be realeased in 2014.

Born in Milan in 1984, she began studying the piano at 3 under the guidance of Graziella Bianchi and Paolo Bordoni. She graduated from the Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi” di Milano in 2004 with top marks, cum laude, and special mention.

She continued her studies at the Musical Academy in Pescara, at the Chigiana Academy in Siena and at the Royal College of Music in London where she completed in 2012 her Master in Performance and Artist Diploma in Piano Accompaniment with Distinction, under Nigel Clayton and Roger Vignoles, generously supported by The Gordon Calway Stone Memorial Award.

In 2012 she has also been the Phoebe Benham Junior Fellow in Piano Accompaniment at the RCM.

From her earliest years she has earned distinction in many national and international competitions, winning 14 first prizes.

At 16 she made her début as soloist with the Rosetum Orchestra in Mozart’s Concerto K 415 and since then has performed as soloist with many Italian and foreign orchestras. In May 2007 “Classica Viva” Musical Editions published her first solo CD with Debussy’s Second Book of Preludes and the Andante Spianato e Grande Polonaise by Chopin.

She has played in public from a very early age, performing recitals at many halls and festivals in Italy, UK, France, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, USA, Japan and Argentina; recent highlights have included concerts in Rome for the “Istituzione Universitaria Concerti”, Milan for the prestigious Societa’ del Quartetto and with the “Pomeriggi Musicali” Orchstra, London at the Royal Albert Hall, Reims for “Les Flâneries Musicales” Festival, Pescara, Messina, Pesaro at the Rossini Theatre, Turin, Siena for the “Accademia Chigiana” and Palermo at the Politeama Theatre for the Opening of the “Amici della Musica” season.

In November 2008 she completed a tour as solo recitalist in several Japanese cities, such as Kyoto, Hiroshima and Tokyo, where she also gave a master class. After her début in 2011, she has been invited to Argentina every year and in 2013 she performed in Buenos Aires at the Colon Theatre and for the “Semana musical Llao Llao” in Bariloche.

She is actively involved in the field of chamber music performance and regularly performs with instrumentalists, singers and chamber groups. Since 2011, she has also been performing regularly in piano duet alongside the well-known English pianist Nigel Clayton.

Her three CDs with Francesca Dego (Sipario Dischi 2005 and 2006 and WideClassique 2011) have been highly praised by critics and extracts from their second CD were used in the sound-track of the new film of prize-winning American director Steven Kroschel, “The Beautiful Truth”. In 2010 they made the first recording of the violin and piano music by Italian composer Nicola Campogrande.

She has performed in broadcasts on Radio Popolare, Radio Classica, the Italian Swiss Radio, RAI Radio 3, Vatican Radio and Tv2000.

Upcoming engagements include tours and recitals in Italy, UK, Middle East, South America, Spain and an 8-concerts tour of China. In March 2014 she will also go back to the USA where she will make her début as soloist in the Beethoven Piano Concerto no.5 “Emperor”.

From a very early age she has showed enthusiasm and passion for teaching and now teaches piano at Trinity School and Trinity Academy in London.