Leonardo Papa, Viola

Biography

Leonardo Papa was born in Reggio Emilia in northern Italy in 1990. A student of Antonello Farulli at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole (Firenze), he graduated summa cum laude at the G.B. Martini Conservatory of Bologna. After his studies in Italy, he became a student of Diemut Poppen, first at the prestigious Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia in Madrid, where the Queen of Spain named him “most outstanding student of the viola class,” then at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, where he is currently working toward a master’s degree. Papa has been awarded first prize in both the Nuovi Orizzonti Competition of Arezzo and the Rassegna d’archi Mario Benvenuti Competition of Vittorio Veneto. He has performed as a soloist in several Italian festivals, including Musica d’Estate, Note di Primavera, and Estate Fiesolana. Leonardo has studied chamber music with Marta Gulyas, Heime Müller (of the Artemis Quartet), Kuss Quartet, Altenberg Trio, Johannes Meissl, Hugh Maguire, and Alexander Bonduriansky, and has performed with Vivian Hagner, Leonid Gorokhov, Mario Brunello, Ariadne Daskalakis, and Claudio Martinez-Mehner at such festivals as the Europäische Akademie-Palazzo Ricci of Montepulciano and the Encuentro de Musica y Academia of Santander. He has also been a member of Claudio Abbado’s Orchestra Mozart, Riccardo Muti’s Orchestra L. Cherubini, and the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie.