MICHELE BALLARINI
Founder member of the Brahms Trio, was firstprizewinner in 1983 of the “J. Brahms International Competition” in Hamburg and in 1990 the Lyons Prize in Florence. A pupil of the Trio di Trieste he obtained the Diploma d’Onore at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena.
With the Trio he has performed in over three hundreds concerts in the major concert halls in Italy (the RAI in Milan, Amici della Musica in Florence, the Bologna Festival, the Teatro Regio in Parma, the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, Amici della Musica in Pistoia, etc,) and abroad (Festival Aspekte in Salzburg, Festival Praha Europa, Kleine Musikhalle in Hamburg, the Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium of the United Nations in New York), and as a soloist in the Mantua Chamber Orchestra (the Teatro Bibiena in Mantua, the Museo Franz Mayer in Mexico City, the Universidad de Colima and Amigos de la Musica in Cuernavaca (Mexico), the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the Hanoi Opera House), and with the I Cameristi Lombardi (in the Great Hall of the Conservatoire and the Ciaikovsky Hall in Moscow, at the Philarmonic in Saint Petersburg, at the North Carolina School for Arts Music and Drama, USA).
Between 1978 and 1983 he regularly played as lead cello with the Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Emilia-Romagna “A.Toscanini”, and in 1998 he collaborated with the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala.
In July - August 1997 he represented Italy in the third “International Cello Encounter” in Rio de Janeiro, giving a recital dedicated to Mendelssohn and Brahms and holding a Masterclass at the Universidade Santa Úrsula.
As a member of the Uberbrettl Ensemble he has performed in Schoenberg Kabarett production, directed by Peter Stein with Maddalena Crippa in the lead role. This production made his debut in Festival di Palermo of XXth century music, and has since been invited to the Accademia Filarmonica Romana, the Wiener Festwochen, the Ravenna Festival 2000, the Festival Cervantino in Guanajuato (Mexico) and the A.B.Michelangeli International Piano Festival in Brescia and Bergamo.
He has recorded for Rai, the Rtsi in Switzerland, the Sdr in Germany and the Orf in Austria, and has also made various CD recordings for Bongiovanni, Sonoton, La Musica and ARTS.
He’s cello professor at Parma Conservatoire.