concert > Italian Piano Visions: from War to Cinema

April 4, 2025 ~ 6 pm

The Italian Cultural Institute of Washington presents “Italian Piano Visions: from War to Cinema“, an exceptional evening in the company of two internationally acclaimed pianists, Roberto Prosseda and Alessandra Ammara, who will be performing their renewed and updated piano duet repertoire.

On April 4, at 6 pm, at Levine Music, in Washington DC, join us for this new recital program for piano 4 hands. Alessandra Ammara and Roberto Prosseda have been playing together steadily since 1999, drawing from their respective and intense international solo careers continuous stimuli and cues to be reposed in the duo’s activity.

ALESSANDRA AMMARA

Alessandra Ammara has drawn the attention of the musical world from a young age, succeeding in major international piano competitions such as the “J. Iturbi” in Valencia, the “Casagrande” in Terni, “G. B. Viotti” in Vercelli, and the “Van Cliburn” in Fort Worth. In 2000 she was awarded “Laureate” by the “Esther Honens” international piano competition in Calgary, Canada. Ms. Ammara’s concert highlights include performances at Grosses Philharmonie in Berlin, Salzburg Grosse Festspielhaus, Musikverein in Vienna, Salle Cortot in Paris, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Gasteig in Munich, Jack Singer Hall in Calgary, Bass Hall in Fort Worth and Meridian Center in Washington. She has thrilled audiences as soloist with orchestras such as Wiener Symphoniker, Berliner Symphoniker, Orchestra Sinfonica della Rai, Calgary Philharmonic, Cape Town Philharmonic with conductors like Fabio Luisi, Georg Pehlivanian, Roberto Minczuk, Bernard Labadie, En Shao, Lior Shambadal. An enthusiastic chamber music performer, Ms. Ammara gave concerts with Ingrid Attrot, Rocco Filippini, Alban Gerhardt, Anton Kuerti, Shauna Rolston, the Takacs Quartet and the Sine Nomine Quartet. Since 1999 she has formed a piano duo with her husband Roberto Prosseda. The duo’s recording of Mendelssohn’s complete woks for piano duet was released by Decca in 2015, winning the “Disco del mese” Award of Classic Voice magazine. She also recorded Mendelssohn’s Concertos for Two pianos with Roberto Prosseda and the Residentie Orkest den Haag conducted by Jan Willem de Vriend (Decca). Ms. Ammara’s discography for the German label Arts includes Chopin’s 4 Ballades, Giacinto Scelsi’s Preludes, Schumann’s Carnaval, Davidsbündlertänze and Album for the Young, Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit and Miroirs. Together with some of the greatest pianists in the world, she recorded the new complete Chopin edition produced by Brilliant Classics. For the same label, Ms. Ammara recorded a CD dedicated to the Italian composer Roffredo Caetani (1871 – 1961) in 2014. Piano Classics has recently released the first two albums of her recording project dedicated to Debussy’s Complete Piano Works. Alessandra Ammara graduated from the “L. Cherubini” Conservatory of Florence and the Accademia Pianistica of Imola. She honed her talents as a student of great musicians like Maria Tipo, Paul Badura-Skoda, Dmitri Bashkirov, Franco Scala, Boris Petrushansky, Leon Fleischer, William Naboré and Fou Ts’ong at the International Piano Foundation at Lake Como and the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole. Ms. Ammara is piano professor at Conservatorio “Cherubini” in Florence and is often invited to sit in international piano competitions and to give master classes for American and European Universities and Conservatories.

ROBERTO PROSSEDA

Roberto Prosseda, born in Latina in 1975, is one of the most active and versatile Italian musicians on the current international scene. He gained international fame following his Decca CDs dedicated to the piano music of Felix Mendelssohn, which he recorded in full on 10 CDs (2005 – 2014), published in a single box set in 2017 (“Mendelssohn Complete Piano Works”) .Over the past twenty years Roberto has performed regularly with some of the world’s leading orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Moscow State Philharmonic, Santa Cecilia, Filarmonica della Scala, Brussels Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest, Netherlands Symphony, Berliner Symphoniker, Staatskapelle Weimar, Calgary Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus. He has performed under the baton of David Afkham, Marc Albrecht, Christian Arming, Harry Bickett, Oleg Caetani, Riccardo Chailly, Pietari Inkinen, Yannik Nezeit-Seguin, George Pehlivanian, Dennis Russel-Davies, Tugan Sokhiev, Jurai Valcuha, Jan Willem de Vriend.With the Gewandhaus Orchester conducted by Riccardo Chailly, he recorded the unpublished Concerto in E minor by Mendelssohn, published by Decca in September 2009. In Italy he is a regular guest of the major concert institutions, including the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, the Teatro alla Scala, the Unione Musicale of Turin, the Teatro la Fenice, the Accademia Chigiana of Siena, the Teatro Comunale of Bologna.Roberto is also particularly appreciated in the interpretations of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, authors to whom he has also dedicated himself in his most recent Decca recordings. His  recording of Mozart Sonatas, recorded on Fazioli piano with unequal Vallotti tuning (6 Decca CDs, 2015-18), has received considerable international acclaim. In 2022 Roberto completed the recording of Mozarts’ complete piano works in 11 CDs.
In 2010 Deutsche Grammophon selected twelve recordings by Prosseda to include them in the “Classic Gold” box set, published in May 2010. Since 2011, he has also played the piano-pedalier in public, having rediscovered and presented in modern premieres various pieces by Alkan and the Concert by Charles Gounod for piano-pedalier and orchestra with the Toscanini Philharmonic of Parma, which he has re-performed with the Berliner Symphoniker, the Weimar Staatskapelle, the Lahti Philharmonic, the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra and recorded the 4 pieces by Charles Gounod for Pedal Piano and orchestra with Orchestra della Radio Svizzera Italiana and Howard Shelley for Hyperion. Roberto Prosseda gave 100 concerts with the pedal piano, contributing to the rediscovery of the instrument and its repertoire.Roberto Prosseda is equally active as a music writer and author Radio and TV project, being also the creator of innovative musical programs of international scope. He conceived three TV documentaries, directed by Angelo Bozzolini, about Mendelssohn, Chopin and Liszt, produced by RAI and worldwide distributed by Euroarts.His book “Il Pianoforte”, a listening guide to piano repertoire, was publushed by Curci in 2013.
In 2023/24 Roberto has been artistic consultant  of Teatro “Verdi” in Pordenone. He  is currently artistic director of Cremona Musica International Exhibitions and of Patmos Chamber Music Festival, which he co-founded in 2022