Lorenzo Gatto

« Creative artist », « libertarian violinist », « passionate virtuoso»: such are some of the expressions used by a unanimous press to describe Lorenzo Gatto’s talent and passion and it has to be said that he maintains a vibrant relationship with his public. A true revelation in the eyes of the greater public and international critics through his second prize and Public’s prize at the prestigious Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition (Concours Musical International Reine Elisabeth )2009, Lorenzo Gatto’s talent has also been recognized with his winning of many other prizes of which the first prize and Public’s Prize at the International RNCM Competition in Manchester (age 18) and first prize at the International Andrea Postacchini Competition in Italy (age 16). Born in Brussels in December 1986, Lorenzo Gatto began studying the violin at the age of 5. At the age of 12 he joined the Brussels’ Royal Conservatory of Music in Véronique Bogaerts’ class where, at 17, he earned a diploma for violin with the highest distinction. After which he continued to perfect his playing under Herman Krebbers in Holland, Augustin Dumay at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, and Boris Kuschnir in Vienna. He also worked with other great musicians such as Salvatore Accardo, Zakhar Bron, Pamela Frank, Robert Mann, Midori, Seiji Ozawa, Julian Rachlin, ... Having been elected Rising Star 2010-2011, Lorenzo started to perform on the major European stages, such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Wiener Musikverein, and also in Athens, Baden-Baden, Barcelona, Birmingham, Cologne, Hamburg, Luxemburg, Newcastle and Stockholm. In Belgium, he has become a major artist for Bozar - the Palais des Beaux-Arts (artist-in- residence for the 2010-2011 season), and Flagey in Brussels, as well as on the other major musical stages of the country. He is regularly invited as a soloist by the Belgian National Orchestra, the Flanders Philharmonic Royal Orchestra (de Filharmonie), the Liège Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia. In recent seasons, Lorenzo also played with the BBC Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gelders Orkest, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Luxemburg, the Sinfonia Varsovia, the Moscow Virtuosi, the “New Russia” State Symphony Orchestra, and the Romanian National Radio Orchestra... Outside Europe, Lorenzo Gatto recently performed in Japan, South Korea, the United States and Abu-Dhabi. Lorenzo has thus appeared as a soloist under the direction of J.C. Casadesus, A. Dumay, S. Goetzel, P. Goodwin, P. Herreweghe, E. Krivine, Y. Nézet-Séguin, V. Sinaisky, V. Spivakov, J. Van Zweden, G. Varga, and W. Weller ... Lorenzo has also been Artistic Director of several original productions by the Brussels Chamber Orchestra and the Kamerorkest. His usual partners in chamber music are Roberto Giordano (piano), Denis Kozhukhin (piano), Eliane Reyes (piano), Denis Sungho (guitar), Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden (piano) and also Camille Thomas (cello) and Béatrice Berrut (piano) within the new Trio Saint-Exupéry. In a more experimental venture, Lorenzo played in front of 50.000 people in the Royan open air festival “Un violon sur le sable” (“a Fiddler on the Sand”) in 2011; he also performs in the unusual trio, Trilogy, with his violinist friends Hrachya Avanesyan and Yossif Ivanov. Lorenzo’s discography was recently enlarged with a recording of Martinu’s Concerto n°2 for violin with the Belgian National Orchestra under the direction of Walter Weller. In 2010 he recorded with the pianist Milos Popovic the works of Enescu, Martinu and Mokranjac (“Deconstructing the Wall” album), as well as Vieuxtemps’s Concerto n°4 with the Liège Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Patrick Davin. He had previously recorded Schubert’s String Trios and Trout, as well as Mozart’s String Trio “Divertimento”. As a committed musician, in 2007 Lorenzo cofounded the Cl4ssiK association with the aim of raising young people’s awareness of classical music. An accomplished athlete, Lorenzo is also an airplane pilot and enjoys paragliding. Lorenzo plays a 1864 J.B. Vuillaume violin.