{"id":54019,"date":"2025-10-23T12:36:50","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T12:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/music-that-smiles-an-interview-with-leonora-armellini\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T12:59:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T12:59:02","slug":"music-that-smiles-an-interview-with-leonora-armellini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/en\/music-that-smiles-an-interview-with-leonora-armellini\/","title":{"rendered":"Music That Smiles. An Interview with Leonora Armellini"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Maria Musti<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Born in Padua in 1992, Leonora Armellini is one of the finest talents in Italian piano. Born into a family of musicians, she began studying piano at the age of four with Laura Palmieri, a student of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, who instilled in her both rigor and a love of music. She graduated at twelve, won the Venice Prize at thirteen, and recorded her first CD, featuring music by Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Chopin, at fourteen. Since then, her career has continued to grow, culminating in a historic fifth place at the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 2021: she is the first Italian woman to have reached the pinnacle of what is unanimously considered the world’s most important piano competition. In 2010, at a previous edition of the same competition, she was awarded the Janina Nawrocka <\/em>Special Prize for her “extraordinary musicality and beauty of sound.” We met her at the Cremona Musica International Exhibitions and Festival 2025, where she presented her latest CD, dedicated to music by Johannes Brahms. Recorded with violist Anna Serova, it was included with the September issue of Amadeus magazine. Her gentle, silvery voice reveals the same passionate energy that emerges when she sits at the piano. <\/p>\n\n

Alongside her important solo career, she’s also very active as a chamber musician. How do you balance these two sides of your musical being? <\/strong>Soloism allows for freedom and independence, bringing enormous satisfaction, but its counterpart is solitude. I love the exchange, drawing inspiration from other musicians’ ideas, and participating in a rich dialogue between instruments. Interpreting a piece is a process that requires time and dedication, and it’s wonderful to share this responsibility with someone. Studying chamber music has taught me many things, including how to fully enjoy the silences and pauses in music. <\/p>\n\n

You have a special connection with Chopin’s music. Is there any other composer you feel particularly close to your artistic sensibility? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

There are composers who have always been a part of my life. I’ve been playing Prokofiev a lot lately, but Chopin is my deepest affinity, one that has been with me since I was a child. It’s a bond that has never been broken, a constant dialogue: I’d call it my life’s work. When I play him, I feel like I’m sitting on a psychologist’s couch: it forces you to look within, to deal with yourself, with your most intimate emotions. I also feel a strong connection with Beethoven. In the past, I’ve performed many of his sonatas, almost all of his concertos, always feeling a kind of awe. Besides, my personal history is inextricably linked to him: my parents met thanks to a Beethoven event, my brother’s name is Ludovico, and I’m Leonora, like the protagonist of Fidelio. It’s as if he were part of my identity, my family. <\/p>\n\n

Tell us how this Brahms CD came about.<\/strong>Brahms represents one of the absolute pinnacles of chamber music. I’ve tackled practically his entire repertoire for piano and instrument: sonatas, trios, quartets… It’s a language that’s incredibly satisfying, because it requires total participation. With Anna Serova, I had the opportunity to try my hand at viola sonatas for the first time, and it was a wonderful experience: she’s a refined musician, with a warm, deep sound and a remarkable sensitivity in managing the phrase. We’re happy to have presented this project at Cremona Musica and will continue to play together. We’re already preparing the next concerts! <\/p>\n\n

Foto credit: Lodovica Barbieri<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Maria Musti Born in Padua in 1992, Leonora Armellini is one of the finest talents in Italian piano. Born into a family of musicians, she began studying piano at the age of four with Laura Palmieri, a student of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, who instilled in her both rigor and a love of music. She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[325],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-intervista-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54020,"href":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54019\/revisions\/54020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cremonamusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}