Giovanni Sollima

Giovanni Sollima is a true virtuoso of the cello, to him playing is not an end in itself but a means to communicate with the world. He is an uncommon composer, communicating with a music with Mediterranean rhythms and a typically Italian melodic vein, combining all eras from Baroque to "metal". He writes mainly for cello and contributes significantly to the creation of new repertoire for his instrument. His audience is diverse, from classical music lovers to young "metal heads" , Giovanni Sollima conquers all.
Born in Palermo into a family of musicians, Giovanni Sollima studied cello with Giovanni Perriera and Antonio Janigro and composition with his father Eliodoro Sollima and Milko Kelemen. He began an international career as cellist, collaborating among others with Claudio Abbado, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Jörg Demus, Martha Argerich, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Bruno Canino, DJ Scanner, Victoria Mullova, Riccardo Muti, Ruggero Raimondi, Patti Smith, Philip Glass and Yo-Yo Ma.
His activity as a soloist with orchestra and with various ensembles (including the Giovanni Sollima Band, which he founded in New York in 1997) is split between official venues and alternative areas: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Alice Tully Hall, Knitting Factory and Carnegie Hall (New York), Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall (London), Salle Gaveau (Paris), Santa Cecilia (Rome), Europa Festival (Rome), Teatro San Carlo (Naples), Kunstfest (Weimar), Kronberg Cello Festival, Time Zones Festival (Bari), Teatro Massimo, Teatro alla Scala (Milan), International Music Festival in Istanbul, Cello Biennale (Amsterdam), Summer Festival in Tokyo, Biennale in Venice, Ravenna Festival, "Sounds of the Dolomites", Ravello Festival, Expo 2010 (Shanghai), Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

For his dance works, he collaborates, among others, with Karole Armitage and Carolyn Carlson, for the theater with Bob Wilson, Alessandro Baricco and Peter Stein and for cinema with Marco Tullio Giordana, Peter Greenaway, John Turturro and Lasse Gjertsen (DayDream, 2007). Sollima has just recorded a new album for the Spanish label Glossa, "Neapolitan Cello Concertos" with I Turchini and Antonio Florio and will soon release soon "Ba-Rock Cello" a collection of baroque and rock songs arranged for cello by Sollima himself. The prestigious Chicago Symphony Orchestra has just commissioned a concerto for two cellos for himself and Maestro Yoyo Ma, which premiere will take place in February 2014 at the Chicago Symphony Hall. He teaches at the Fondazione Romanini di Brescia at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He plays a cello by Francesco Ruggeri (1679, Cremona).