Final marathon – Hommage à la France

Massimo Spada, born in Rome in 1986, began his piano studies at the age of six and graduated with honours at Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome in 2005, in the class of Pieralberto Biondi. He also studied with Boris Petrushansky, Riccardo Risaliti, Benedetto Lupo and Stefano Fiuzzi, Lazar Berman, Elissò Virsaladze, Joaquin Soriano and Andrea Lucchesini.

In 2009 he achieved his degree with honours in Music History at the Università La Sapienza in Rome. 
He regularly performs solo recitals and chamber music concerts in duo and trio formations. Among the musicians with whom he collaborated there are Beatrice Rana, Andrea Obiso, Andrea Oliva, Roberto González-Monjas, Simone Lamsma, David and Diego Romano, to name just a few. His intense concert activity led him to perform in many venues and festivals in Italy and abroad, including Parco della Musica in Rome, Festival MiTo in Turin, Festival Internazionali per la Pace in Assisi, Sagra Malatestiana in Rimini, and for several prestigious concerts series in Venice, Padua, Bologna, Cuneo, Matera, La Spezia, Sulmona, Catania, Siracusa, Campobasso, Aosta.

He promotes contemporary music and often performs pieces dedicated to him. Since 2011 he is the pianist of Ensemble Novecento, conducted by Carlo Rizzari, with whom he promoted new music of emerging composers.

He was awarded a First Prize in many international competitions, including J. S. Bach Competition in Sestri Levante, Rospigliosi Competition in Lamporecchio, Premio Sergio Cafaro.Very active as a teacher, he is piano professor at Conservatorio Morlacchi in Perugia and he is one of the founders and artistic directors of the International Music School Avos Project, where he teaches from 2020.

Georgy Kovalev was born in Tiflis in 1990 and is one of the leading violists of his generation.
After studying with Yuri Bashmet and Nobuko Imai at the Kronberg Academy, he is furthering his studies with Tabea Zimmermann at HfM Hanns Eisler in Berlin.
Georgy has performed as soloist with major orchestras such as Kremerata Baltica, New Russia State Symphony Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Moscow Soloists, New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.

He has been a finalist and prizewinner at the Moscow Yuri Bashmet International Competition and the Tokyo International Viola Competition. In 2011 he received the Neva Foundation Prize from the Verbier Festival.

In addition to being a member of the Delian Quartet, he is a very active chamber musician and collaborates with Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, Steven Isserlis, Yuri Bashmet, Fazil Say, Frans Helmerson, Emanuel Ax, Jörg Widmann, Viviane Hagner, Claudio Bohorquez, Lawrence Lesser, at major festivals such as Schubertiade, Verbier Festival, Ravinia Festival, Heidelberger Frühling, Rheingau Festival, Kronberg Academy Festival.

Georgy has played in the most prestigious halls around the world such as Victoria Hall (Geneva), Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (Paris), Philharmonie in Cologne, Kioi Hall (Tokyo), Prinz Regent Theater Hall (Munich), Gordon Bennett Hall (Chicago), Great Hall of the Moscow Consrvatory. He also recorded for German Radio together with his quartet Bach's The Art of Fugue.His future engagements will take him to the USA, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Serbia, Slovenia, Korea, Holland, France, Austria and Italy.

Winner of the First Prize at the prestigious Geneva Competition in 2018 at only 22 years old, Kevin Pedro Spagnolo (1996) is considered one of the most talented artists of his generation. Already winner of the Concours Internationale de Clarinette Jacques Lancelot and Ghent International Clarinet Competition, First Prize at the Berliner International Music Competition, Kevin performs throughout Europe in recitals with piano, as a soloist and in chamber music ensembles, with string quartet and other wind instruments. In 2021 he released his first solo CD, Façades, with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and conductor Michael Collins, sponsored by Breguet and the Geneva Competition, with music by G. Rossini, C.M. von Weber, Jean Françaix and Béla Kovács.

He has performed as a soloist with the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra and the conductor Anton Shaburov in St. Petersburg, in the Olympus Festival, for the “White Nights of St.Petersburg”, the Orchestra de Aguascalientes and Roman Revueltas, Orchestre de Chambre de Genève with Pierre Bleuse, Orchestre des Nations with Vitor Fernandes and Antoine Marguier, Bruxelles Philharmonic with Antonio Saiote, and many others. He has played in recitals and several festivals in France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany, with Carlos Sanchis, Chloe Ji-yeong Mun, Theo Fouchenneret, the Quatour Voce string quartet, in the Montpellier Festival (Radio France), and many others, and some of his concerts have been recorded for radio broadcasts on Radio France, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Rai Radio 3, Radio Télévision Suisse. He regularly plays in various festivals in Italy in duo with the pianist Simone Rugani.Kevin started studying clarinet at the age of eight at Lucca’s Conservatoire, where he graduated with honours in 2013 in the class of Remo Pieri. Later, he studied with Carlo Failli, Fabrizio Meloni, Romain Guyot. In addition to his concert activity, Kevin dedicates himself to teaching with Masterclasses throughout Europe and is a teacher at the International Music School Avos Project.

Born in 1995 in a family of musicians, Ludovica started her soloist career at a young age, performing in recitals for prestigious concert societies, including Società dei Concerti di Milano, Cremona Mondo Musica, Fazioli Concert Hall, Accademia Filarmonica di Messina, Varignana Music Festival, I concerti del Quirinale, Festival Classiche Forme, as well as a soloist with many orchestras, such as Orchestra ICO di Lecce, Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto and Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana. 

As a chamber musician, she had numerous collaborations with the sister Beatrice Rana, Enrico Dindo, Pablo Ferràndez, Giovanni Sollima, Bruno Giuranna, Oleg Kaskiv, Francesco Libetta, Massimo Quarta, Danilo Rossi, Alessandro Taverna, Pavel Vernikov.

After graduating with honors in 2014 at the Istituto Musicale “Giovanni Paisiello” in Taranto, in the class of Andrea Agostinelli, Ludovica continued her studies with Enrico Dindo at the Pavia Cello Academy and at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, where she achieved her Master in Music Performance, and with Giovanni Sollima at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, where she graduated with honours. At the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia she also completed with honours the Chamber Music course with Carlo Fabiano.

She also studied with renowned cellists, such as Michael Flaksman, Johannes Goritzki, Antonio Meneses, Frans Helmerson, Antonio Mosca, Asier Polo, Troels Svane, Rafael Wallfish. 

Since 2024 she is the Artistic Director Festival di Pasqua in Lecce. She is Chamber Music professor at the Conservatoire “Niccolò Piccinni” in Bari.