Roberto Prosseda

Roberto Prosseda at a pedal piano, Florence, November 2013

Roberto Prosseda (born 1975) is an Italian classical pianist.

Prosseda began composing for the piano at the age of four, and took his first private piano lessons at six. In 1985, he entered the Conservatorio Ottorino Respighi in Latina, where he studied piano with Anna Maria Martinelli, graduating in 1994. He went on to study with Alexander Lonquich, Boris Petrushansky and Franco Scala at the Accademia Pianistica "Incontri col Maestro" in Imola, and with Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, William Grant Naboré, Charles Rosen, Karl Ulrich Schnabel, Fou Ts'ong at the International Piano Foundation in Cadenabbia (Lake Como, Italy). Prosseda has won major prizes in several piano competitions, including the Umberto Micheli competition in Milan,[1] the Franz Schubert competition in Dortmund, the Alessandro Casagrande competition in Terni, and the Mozart competition in Salzburg. Prosseda completed his PhD in Italian Literature from La Sapienza University in Rome. Prosseda and his wife, concert pianist Alessandra Ammara, perform as a piano duo.

Prosseda is particularly noted for his performances of newly discovered works by Felix Mendelssohn. He has recorded a nine-CD series for Decca of the piano works of Mendelssohn,[2] including a Mendelssohn Discoveries album of formerly unknown works.[3] Prosseda discovered a manuscript of Mendelssohn's uncompleted third piano concerto in the Bodleian Library, and asked Marcello Bufalini to complete the score. Prosseda subsequently performed the reconstruction publicly and recorded it commercially.[4][5] Prosseda has prepared critical editions of rare piano works by Mendelssohn, including 6 Fugues (1821–26), 4 Sonatas (1820), and Fantasia for piano four hands (1824). Prosseda is founder and president of the Associazione Mendelssohn, which promotes the music and the heritage of Felix Mendelssohn.

Prosseda dedicated the early part of his career to the discovery of piano works by several neglected Italian composers, such as Antonio Salieri, Gioachino Rossini and Roffredo Caetani. He published the first edition of Salieri's Sonata in C major in 2004 for Boccaccini & Spada.[6]

In September 2011, Prosseda gave his first public performance on the piano-pédalier (pedal piano), the modern première of Charles Gounod's concerto for piano-pédalier and orchestra in E flat major (1889), with the Orchestra Filarmonica Toscanini conducted by Jan Latham Koenig. Subsequently, contemporary composers have written piano pedal pieces for Prosseda, including Cristian Carrara, Ennio and Andrea Morricone, Giuseppe Lupis, Alessandro Solbiati and Michael Glenn Williams.[7] Prosseda has commercially recorded four works by Charles Gounod for piano-pédalier and orchestra (Concerto, Suite Concertante, Fantaisie sur l'Hymne Russe and Danse Roumaine) for Hyperion.[8] In June 2012, Prosseda made his debut recital on the piano-pédalier at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza.

Since 2012, Prosseda has also given lecture-concerts with the robot pianist TeoTronico, as educational or family concerts, to demonstrate differences between a literal production of music and human interpretation.[9] On 23 August 2012 at the Philharmonie in Berlin, Roberto Prosseda appeared as ghost pianist, playing a Clavinova digital piano from backstage, connected in real time via Midi with TeoTronico. The robot, onstage, mirrored his performance of Chopin's Polacca Brillante op. 22, reproducing it on a normal grand piano with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. This was the first experiment of a live teleconcert with a ghost pianist. Prosseda repeated the experiment in Palermo on 4 November 2012, performing Mozart's concerto K488 backstage, with TeoTronico on stage with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana.

Prosseda is a host on Italian National Radio (RAI), Radiotre, and a contributor to the "Lezioni di Musica" series on RAI. Prosseda is the author of "Lezioni di Musica - il Pianoforte", a listening guide to piano repertoire, published in Italian by Edizioni Curci in 2013. He is the author and co-producer of three documentaries: "Mendelssohn Unknown", "Fryderyk Chopin", and "Liszt: The Years of Pilgrimage". He is also co-founder and artistic coordinator of "Donatori di Musica", a network of musicians and doctors who organise concert series in Italian hospitals.[10]

Honours and awards

Recordings

References

  1. ↑ "Concorso 'Umberto Micheli' tre pianisti in finale alla Scala". La Repubblica. 2001-10-21. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  2. ↑ Jeremy Nicholas (March 2013). "Mendelssohn: Piano Works". Gramophone. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  3. ↑ Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim (2005-05-03). "Restoring the Reputation of Wagner's Victim". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  4. ↑ Tim Ashley (2009-04-08). "LPO/Nézet-Séguin". The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  5. ↑ "Mendelssohn: Symphony No 3; Piano Concerto No 3; Hebrides Overture". The Guardian. 2009-09-24. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  6. ↑ Luigi di Fronzo (2004-12-03). "E' l' ora di Salieri E Prosseda propone l' inedito". La Repubblica. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  7. ↑ Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim (2012-04-25). "Playing Heart, Soul and Feet". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  8. ↑ Andrew Clements (2013-11-07). "Gounod: Complete Works for Pedal Piano and Orchestra – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  9. ↑ "Robô pianista de 53 dedos desafia maestro e toca canção brasileira". Globo TV. 2013-05-26. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  10. ↑ Gregorio Moppi (2010-08-18). "Donatori di musica nei reparti del dolore". La Repubblica. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  11. ↑ "Esplora il significato del termine: Scelti i vincitori del premio Petrassi, Ennio Morricone presiedeva la giuria". Corriere della Sera. 2010-09-29. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
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