Lorenzo Gatto

About Lorenzo Gatto

Violinist Lorenzo Gatto rose to international prominence in the 2010s with concerto performances, recitals, and chamber music performances. With pianist Julian Libeer he recorded the complete violin sonatas of Beethoven. Gatto was born on December 2, 1986, in Brussels. He took up the violin at five and enrolled in the city's Royal Conservatory of Music at 12, where his teacher was Véronique Bogaerts. At 17, he graduated with the highest honors. Gatto went for further lessons with Herman Krebbers, Augustin Dumay, and Boris Kuschnir, and took a variety of master classes with Salvatore Accardo and others. A second prize and the Audience Prize at Brussels' prestigious Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in 2009 put him on the radar, and he began to play major concert halls in the early 2010s. These included the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, and the Vienna Musikverein. Back home in Belgium, he quickly became an important part of Brussels' musical life, making repeated appearances at the Palais des Beaux-Arts (a.k.a. Le Bozar), where he served as artist-in-residence in the 2010-2011 season, and at the Place Flagey concert hall. Gatto has performed with the BBC Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, and the Luxembourg Philharmonic, among other groups, and his concert itineraries have taken him to East Asia, the U.S., and Abu Dhabi. In 2007, he co-founded the organization Cl4ssiK, which aims to broaden the appreciation of classical music among young people. At the festival Un violon sur le sable in Royan, France, in 2011, he played for an audience of 50,000. Gatto made his solo recording debut on the Fuga Libera label in 2010 with the recital Deconstructing the Wall, and he has also recorded for Zig Zag Territoires, Cypres, and Alpha. He and Libeer recorded Beethoven's complete violin sonatas for Alpha in three volumes, concluding in 2019. ~ James Manheim

HOMETOWN
Brussels, Belgium
BORN
1986
GENRE
Classical
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