Mariangela Vacatello

Early life

Vacatello comes from a musical family: her mother, Pina, was a pianist and now is a piano teacher and her father, Antonio, is a piano tuner as well as a professor and musician. When Vacatello was four years old, she began taking Yamaha Music Course. At age seven, she continued studying solo piano with a pupil of the famous Italian pianist and pedagogue Vincenzo Vitale, Aldo Tramma. By the time she was already admitted to the International Piano Academy "Incontri col Maestro" in Imola where she became a maestro in 2006 after studying under guidance from Franco Scala and Piero Rattalino. At the same time she also studied in Milan Conservatory "G. Verdi" with Riccardo Risaliti and Paolo Bordoni where in 1999 she obtained her piano degree with cum Laude Honourable mention. In the same conservatory, Vacatello studied composition for several years with Bruno Zanolini and Fabio Vacchi. Vacatello completed her Postgraduate Piano Performance Course at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Christopher Elton as well as Dominique Merlet in Paris. She participated in masterclasses held by Alexander Lonquich, Louis Lortie, Andreij Jasinskj, Leslie Howard, Michael Dalberto, Andrea Lucchesini, Alexis Weissenberg, Vitaly Margulis, Sergeij Dorensky, Elissò Virsaladze.

She is a recipient of the Sterndale Bennett Scholarship, and was awarded numerous awards including from the Musicians Benevolence Fund (Dame Myra Hess Award), The Tillet Trust, Hattori Foundation, The Solti Foundation and the Acadèmie musicale de Villecroze.

Career

At the age of 14 she made her first public appearance with the Pomeriggi Musicali Orchestra in Milan Milan playing Liszt 1st Piano Concerto. Since then she has appeared in the most prestigious Italian venues and festivals like Festival Bergamo e Brescia, Società dei Concerti in Milan, Teatro Dal Verme, MiTo Settembre Musica Festival, Lingotto in Turin, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino", Festival delle Nazioni" in Città di Castello, Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, MittelFest in Cividale del Friuli, Teatro Bibiena in Mantova, Sala Greppi in Bergamo, Amici della Musica and Teatro Filarmonico in Verona, Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna, Associazione Scarlatti in Naples, Parco della Musica, Villa Medici and Accademia Filarmonica Romana in Rome, Sagra Musicale Umbra.

She is performing also in the international concert arena and few of her engagements have been for Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Montpellier Festival in summer 2006, Salle Cortot and the Societè Chopin in Paris, Festival Chopin in Duszniki Zsdroj, Berlin Konzerthause, Mozarteum Auditorium in Salzburg, Bozar and Theatre de la Monnaie in Bruxelles, Lisinsky Hall in Zagreb, Wigmore Hall in London, Chichester Festival, Buxton Festival, Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, Linder Auditorium in Johannesburg, Z.K.M. Great Hall in Pretoria, Palacio de Festivales di Santander, Bargemusic and Carnegie Hall in New York City, Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, Krevis Centre in Florida, International Keyboard Festival in New York City, MusicFest in Vancouver, Shanghai Oriental Art Center, Beijing Center for Performing Arts. In September 2003 she played several times in Mexico and toured South Africa in 2004 and 2006, where her performances got standing ovations and rave reviews. Besides recitals she also appeared with various orchestras such as the Philharmonic of Teatro alla Scala, Orchestra Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra RAI, Johannesburg, Pannon, Stuttgart, and Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestras as well as Lithuanian Symphony, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Springs, Erie Philharmonics, Asheville Symphony, Orchestra della Magna Grecia, Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra, Colorado Springs Symphony, Oduring which Mariangela was under guidance of such conductors as Andris Nelsons, Krystoph Penderecky, Christopher Franklin, Bernard Gueller, Martin Haselboeck, Zsolt Hamar, David Itkin, Daniel Kawka, Gerard Korsten, Gustav Kuhn, Anton Nanut, Piero Romano, Donato Renzetti, Giordano Bellincampi, Carolyn Kuan, Daniel Meyer, Kristian Jaarvi, Andrè Orozco-Estrada, and Michael Tabachnik. Mariangela has also collaborated in chamber music with both Takács and Ysaÿe Quartets as well as musicians such as Timothy Fain, Rocco Filippini, Ilya Grubert, Gary and Toby Hoffman, Francesco Tamiati, Giovanni Gnocchi, Natasha Korsakova.

Vacatello's performances are regularly broadcast by prestigious radio stations such as Radio France Musique, Musiq3 Belgique, Radio Svizzera Italiana, Radio 3 Italia, Radio Pretoria and several American radio stations.

In 2013 Vacatello has brought on stage "THE TWILIGHT CONCERT", an unusual and intriguing journey, which rises in absolute darkness and gradually takes us to the discovery of primordial glares and reassuring reflections. A long succession of days and nights, the alternation of light and dark, flashes of joy and depths of despair, dawns with touches of hope and colorful sunsets of disillusion... this is life, our life! The musical journey that Mariangela Vacatello thought for this concert is both narrative and summary of this ideal.

In June 2016 she performed the world premier of ‘Unrisen’ for SmartPianoQuintet by Marco Momi, together with Quatuor Zäide. Classical performances and deep contemporary music have met in Paris with the new technology made in Ircam: electronic sound through instruments —- that is, without speakers.

Selected competitions and awards

Recordings

Personal life

Vacatello is now living between Milan and Umbria, Italy, together with her husband, the organist of Perugia's "St. Lorenz" Cathedral Adriano Falcioni. They both tour worldwide for concerts.