In 1986
Mario Brunello was the first Italian ever to win the Tchaikovsky
Competition in Moscow, which launched him into a stunning
international career. Brunello has played with some of the most prestigious
orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic,
the Munich Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Mahler
Chamber Orchestra, the London Symphony, the Kioi Sinfonietta,
the Orchestre National de France, the NHK Symphony Tokyo,
the Filarmonica della Scala, the Accademia di Santa Cecilia and
the DSO Berlin. He has also collaborated with conductors such as Valery
Gergiev, Yuri Temirkanov, Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Muti, Vladimir Jurowski,
Ton Koopman, Daniele Gatti, Antonio Pappano, John Axelrod, Myung‐Whun Chung,
Seiji Ozawa and Claudio Abbado. Abbado has, over the years, invited
Brunello several times to play with him and the Orchestra of
the Lucerne Festival and the Mozart Orchestra. With both orchestras
Brunello has appeared as a soloist and as a conductor.
He
often takes on the dual roles of conductor and soloist, and in 1994 he
founded the Orchestra d’Archi Italiana with which he tours intensively both
in Italy and abroad. Chamber music plays an important role in his
artistic life and he collaborates with artists including Gidon Kremer, Martha
Argerich, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Yuri Bashmet, Maurizio Pollini, Valery
Afanassiev, Andrea Lucchesini, the Borodin and the Alban Berg
Quartets.
Brunello
also devotes much time to projects involving various art forms (literature,
philosophy, Science and theatre). Through new ways of communication he tries to
attract new audiences, creating interactive performances of music, images and
words. A large number of these activities take place in Antiruggine,
a remodelled workshop that is ideal for these experiments.
The diverse
artistic genres with which Brunello experiments are reflected in a
wide-ranging collection of recordings which include the Beethoven Triple
Concerto conducted by Claudio Abbado (Deutsche Grammophon), the Bach Suites
and Sonatas by Brahms, Beethoven and Chopin, contemporary works for solo cello
and a five‐CD “Brunello Series” on Egea Records including Odusia,
a musical Odyssey through Mediterranean culture, Brunello
and Vivaldi (dedicated to
the cello concerti by Vivaldi), Violoncello
and… for solo cello, Schubert
e Lekeu with the pianist
Andrea Lucchesini and a double CD with the Bach Suites.
The latter was awarded the prestigious Italian Critics’ Award
in 2010.
Major
engagements of the 2012–13 season include a tour with violinist Gilles
Apap, Shostakovich’s Concerto No 2 under Valery Gergiev in Paris,
concerts with the Liverpool Philharmonic, the Philharmonique de
Radio‐France and the Tenerife and Stavanger Symphony Orchestras as well as
a residency at the Gstaad Sommets Musicaux Festival.
In October 2012
a new CD with Dvořák’s Concerto recorded live in Rome with
the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra conducted by Antonio Pappano will
be released by EMI.
Mario
Brunello plays a Maggini cello from the 1600s.