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Cristiana Pegoraro

Hailed by The New York Times as “an artist of the highest caliber,” Italian-born pianist Cristiana Pegoraro has performed on the world’s most prestigious stages, including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the United Nations (New York), the Sydney Opera House, Festspielhaus (Salzburg), Musikverein (Vienna), Royal College of Music (London), Auditorium Parco della Musica (Rome), Amici del Loggione del Teatro alla Scala (Milan), Theatro Municipal (São Paulo), Theatro Municipal (Rio de Janeiro), the Opera House (Manaus), and at music festivals including the Budapest Spring Festival, Umbria Jazz, Umbria Jazz Winter, Sorrento Jazz Festival (Italy), Saint Petersburg Festival (Russia), Edinburgh Festival, Klavierfestival Ruhr (Germany), Shabyt Festival Astana (Kazakhstan), the Aichi World Expo (Japan), and the Zaragoza World Expo (Spain), among others.

Ms. Pegoraro has appeared as a soloist with acclaimed orchestras and ensembles such as Salzburger Kammervirtuosen, Hannover Kammerorkester, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, Garland (Texas) Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Arlington (Texas), Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra (Texas), COS Youth Symphonic Ensemble (USA), MAV Symphony Orchestra (Hungary), Darzhava Philarmonia Shumen (Bulgaria), National Orchestra of Georgia (Tbilisi), Orquesta Filarmonica de Bogota (Colombia), Orquesta Sinfonica de Cuyo, Orquesta Sinfonica de la Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Orquesta Sinfonica Pro Lirica (Peru), Kazakhstan Chamber Orchestra, State Chamber Orchestra of the Music Academy of Astana (Kazakhstan), and Philharmonic Orchestra of Oradea (Romania).

In Italy, she has performed with Orchestra Verdi di Milano, I Musici di Parma, Istituzione Sinfonica di Roma, Orchestra da Camera dell’Umbria, Orchestra Filarmonica Città di Roma, Orchestra Filarmonica di Civitavecchia, Orchestra Filarmonica di Roma, Orchestra Filarmonica Umbra, Orchestra Filarmonica Veneta, Orchestra del Narnia Festival, Ensemble Estro Tanguero, Orchestra Sinfonica Accademia Musicale Pescarese, La Camerata Ducale di Parma, Orchestra Sinfonica Carlo Coccia di Novara, Chamber Ensemble of Rome, and Orchestra L’Armonica Temperanza.

She has collaborated as a soloist with the Banda Centrale della Marina Militare and with the Banda dell’Arma dei Carabinieri, with whom she performed before an audience of 3,000 at the Auditorium Parco della Musica of Rome. Her 2003 New York City concert with the Banda Centrale della Marina Militare, as part of the celebration of Columbus Day, took place in the presence of the city’s mayor Michael Bloomberg aboard the battleship-museum USS Intrepid.

Cristiana Pegoraro is the first Italian female pianist to perform all 32 Piano Sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven, and among few pianists in the world to have performed all five Beethoven Piano Concertos in a single day. During her tours of the Persian Gulf countries, she became the first female pianist of any country to perform concerts of classical music in Bahrain, Yemen, and Oman.

Over the years, she has appeared before many of the world’s highest dignitaries, including the President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, the President of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Governor of New York State, the Mayor of New York City, Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg, the Italian Minister of Economic Development, and the President of the Austrian Senate.

In 2008, she was the only European representative at the Spring Festival at the United Nations in New York, and performed in the hall of the General Assembly in front of ambassadors and dignitaries from 192 countries.

In collaboration with Italian Embassies and Italian Cultural Institutes, she is regularly invited by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to represent Italy and to promote Italian music worldwide.

Her piano artistry can be heard on 28 CDs released by Decision Products, Nuova Era, Dynamic, Diva Productions, Eden Editori, Da Vinci Publishing and Promu.

Pegoraro’s “Astor Piazzolla Tangos”, released in 2016, won the gold medal at California’s prestigious Global Music Awards. The pianist’s two most recent recordings comprise a CD entitled “Gioacchino Rossini Overtures – Piano Transcriptions,” featuring her newly-written transcriptions of the composer’s most famous overtures, and a second CD, “Fantasia Italiana, ” with more new transcriptions, for piano and string orchestra, of Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.”

As a composer, she has released six highly acclaimed albums of her own original compositions (“A Musical Journey”, “Ithaka”, “La mia Umbria”, “Volo di note” and “Piano di volo” and “Colors of Love”) and has had various compositions used in films and documentaries. Ms. Pegoraro composed the soundtrack to the video “For Whom the Sirens Toll” produced by the United Nations Office of the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict and presented at the United Nations on September 11, 2004, in memory of the victims of the terrorist attack. She wrote the soundtrack for the documentary “La casa dell’orologio” (“The House of the Clock”) by Italian director Gianni Torres.

On March 22, 2021, her video clip “RAIN,” with original music, debuted on the occasion of the United Nations’ “World Water Day.” The video was made under the auspices of the UN and was entered in the UN’s official Gallery.

Cristiana is the author of a book of poems called “Ithaka” and a series of children’s books based on Italian operas. Her poems are published in the book “Poeti Umbri Contemporanei” by Il Formichiere and in the 2020 edition of “Il Corniolano,” released on World Poetry Day, declared by UNESCO.

At present, she has received over 40 international awards. They include:
– The World Peace Award from the Circolo Culturale Italiano of the United Nations “for her effort in advancing peace in the world.”
– The Mela d’Oro Premio Bellisario by Fondazione Marisa Bellisario with a live ceremony on RAI1 broadcast worldwide, and a private visit with the President of the Republic of Italy, Sergio Mattarella.
– The Melvin Jones Fellow Award “for dedicated humanitarian services” from the Lions Clubs International Foundation.
– The Premio Simpatia, awarded by the Mayor of Rome to performing artists, authors, ambassadors and sports figures who exemplify a commitment to Italy, and conceived in recognition “of individuals who enrich and exalt the essential values of life through their work.” Past recipients have included film directors Federico Fellini and Franco Zeffirelli, actress Sophia Loren, and Mother Theresa.
– The 2010 ILICA Woman of the Year Award by the Italian Language Intercultural Alliance in New York.

Cristiana supports various international organizations such as UNICEF (for which she is a spokesperson), Amnesty International, World Food Programme, Emergency, Lions Clubs International, and Rotary International in their humanitarian efforts.

She has been a featured artist on radio and television, on WQXR New York, RAI, Mediaset, Radio Vaticana, Discoteca di Stato (Italy), BBC (Scotland), ARD (Germany), RTP (Portugal), Nine Network (Australia), and CBC (Japan). She has been a guest on the Italian TV shows “Porta a Porta” with Bruno Vespa (RAI 1), “Sottovoce” with Gigi Marzullo (RAI 1), and “Vivere Meglio” with Fabrizio Trecca (Rete 4). Concerts of hers have been broadcast on RAI 5.

Ms. Pegoraro created, produced, and directed, for Oltretutto Radio (Italy), the show entitled “The Magic of the Piano,” with biographies of the great composers and her performances at the piano.

Cristiana regularly presents master classes at The Juilliard School in New York City and in much of the USA, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia as well as outreach and music appreciation programs, with the goal of spreading the love for and the interest in classical music.

In addition to her concertizing and teaching activities, she is also involved in arts and organizational management and production, working with important institutions and for music events at both national and international levels.

From 2011, she is the Founder and President of Narnia Arts Academy (www.narniaartsacademy.com) and Artistic Director of Narnia Festival (www.narniafestival.com), a non-profit organization whose goal is to promote the arts and the cultural, architectural and historical heritage of Italy through a vast array of initiatives. Both the Academy and the Festival are eight-time recipients of the “Medal of the President of the Italian Republic” for their outstanding programming.

She is a spokesperson for her native region of Umbria’s tourism campaign throughout the world and Ambassador of San Valentino to the world.

Ms. Pegoraro graduated with the highest honors from the Conservatory of Terni, Italy, at the age of sixteen. She continued piano studies with Jörg Demus in Vienna and with Hans Leygraf at both the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. Later, Cristiana was a student of Nina Svetlanova at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City.

For more information, visit www.cristianapegoraro.com

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Lorenzo Porzio

At the age of seven he began studying the piano and at eleven he began studying the organ under the organist and composer Lorenzo Ronci. He concluded his studies at Santa Cecilia with Maestro Federico del Sorto. Since 1996 he has been the principal organist at the Basilica del Sacro Cuore Immacolato di Maria ai Parioli (Rome).

From 1997 – 2011 he continued to perfect his piano studies under Biagio Andriulli, Andrea Sammartino, Giovanni Scaramuzza and Gino Nappo at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome. He has performed as soloist and has accompanied polyphonic choirs in some of the most prestigious cathedrals and venues in Italy. He has worked with many important singers from the Santa Cecilia Academy and Teatro dell’Opera, the Coro Accademico Romano and the Coro Polifonico S. Martino, among others. In 2003 he held concerts in the Vatican (Sala Raffaello), in the Chiesa del Governatorato and in the Vatican Gardens for the re-opening of the Casina di Pio IV.

He studied composition with Marco Persichetti, graduating with the highest grades from the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome under Francesco Telli.

He began his career as Orchestra Conductor studying with Francesco Carotenuto and Marco Boemi, and participating in Piero Bellugi’s Masterclasses. Since 2004 he has written and performed music on the piano and organ for shows, documentaries and short TV movies on RAI 1, RAI 3, RAI International, Sky Sport, Roma Uno, and others. In November 2005, Radio Uno Rai broadcasted his “Rapsodia Orientale (Pensando a Pechino)” composed and played by him. In May 2006 he debuted as composer at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome (Sala Petrassi) during an event hosted by Pippo Baudo “Com’è Straordinaria la Vita”, and held a chamber music concert in the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano for the 400th anniversary of the opening of the Vatican Museums. During the Christmas festivities in 2006, he played the organ during the Mass in St. Peter’s Cathedral. In September 2009 and in December 2011, he was again organist at St. Peter’s for the celebration of Masses by Cardinal Comastri.

From 2009 to 2010 he was First Assistant Conductor of the elite orchestra of the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome. In 2010 he debuted as Conductor of the Orchestra Tiberina, conducting the orchestra again in 2011 for a concert at the Cathedral of the Santissimi Apostoli (Rome). Since 2010 he has been collaborating with the Accademia Santa Cecilia as pianist and conductor. Since 2011 he has been Principal Conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra “L’Armonica Temperanza”, with which he tours on a regular basis. With “L’Armonica Temperanza” he was invited to perform in the most prestigious halls and churches of Rome (Sala della Protomoteca del Campidoglio, Sala del Coro della Cappella Sistina, Biblioteca del Senato, Biblioteca Nazionale, Basilica di Santa Francesca Romana, San Quirico e Giulitta ai Fori Imperiali, San Bartolomeo all’Isola Tiberina, S.Lucia al Gonfalone, Chiesa degli Spagnoli ai Banchi Vecchi, San Clemente, Sant’Eugenio alle Belle Arti, San Paolo entro le mura). In 2012 he founded the Orchestra and Choir of Convitto Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele II in Rome.

In 2013, within the Narnia Festival, he conducts at the prestigious Orvieto Cathedral and San Domenico Auditorium in Narni, Italy. Both concerts were recorded by RAI 1 and presented by famous actress Barbara De Rossi.

In January 2014 he debuts with Orchestra Filarmonica di Roma at the Auditorium Seraphicum in Rome and Teatro Magnani in Fidenza (Parma) with two sold out concerts.

On the basis of his merits, the President of the Republic of Italy, C.A.Ciampi, awarded him the title of “Cavaliere della Repubblica”.

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