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Born and raised in Foggia, Italy, Antonio Pompa-Baldi first came to the U.S. in 1999 to participate in the Cleveland International Piano Competition. He won the First Prize, and, while fulfilling all the engagements that came with it, he and his wife, Italian pianist Emanuela Friscioni, decided to make Cleveland their home. A top prize winner at the 1998 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition of Paris, France, Antonio Pompa-Baldi also won a silver medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, as well as the Award for the Best Performance of a New Work.
Mr. Pompa-Baldi has toured extensively in four continents, bringing his assured touch on the keyboard to some of the world's major concert venues including Cleveland's Severance Hall, Milan's Sala Verdi, Naples' Teatro Diana, New York's Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall, and Paris' Salle Cortot, Salle Gaveau, Salle Pleyel, Theatre des Champs-Elysees and Théâtre du Châtelet.
After a triumphant debut in Beijing, China, where Mr. Pompa-Baldi played a recital in the Forbidden City Concert Hall, and Master Classes at the China National Conservatory, he was named Honorary Guest Professor of that Institution. Highly acclaimed recitals in London, England and Palma de Mallorca, Spain, and a performance with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in Kiev were also among recent performances. Mr. Pompa-Baldi also made orchestral and solo appearances at Carnegie Hall, respectively in Isaac Stern Auditorium and Zankel Hall, as well as with the Houston Symphony, Berliner Symphoniker (in Tokyo, Japan), Colorado Symphony, North Carolina, Peoria, and Duluth Symphony Orchestras, Rochester Philharmonic, Jacksonville Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia (New Zealand), Kansas City Symphony, Toledo Symphony, Cleveland Pops, National Orchestra of Santo Domingo, Symphony of the Americas (Ft. Lauderdale), and Canton Symphony. He also performed recitals in cities such as Seoul , Paris (Chopin Festival), Chicago, Ravinia, Houston (Texas Music Festival), Portland (OR), Sacramento , Fort Worth (Cliburn Series), Salt Lake City (Assembly Hall), and Duszniki Zdroj , Poland (Chopin Festival).
Antonio Pompa-Baldi has collaborated with leading conductors including Hans Graf, James Conlon, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Keith Lockhart, Christopher Seaman, Fabio Mechetti, Daniel Hege, Louis Lane, Pascal Rophe', Grant Llewellyn, and Stefan Sanderling, appearing with the Boston Pops, the Pacific Symphony, the Orchestre Philarmonique de Metz (France), the Orchestre National de Paris-Radio France, as well as the Symphony Orchestras of Fort Worth, Syracuse, Columbus, Charleston, Southwest Florida, and Spokane. Other notable recital engagements include Bologna, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, Hartford , Miami and San Juan (Portorico).
A passionate chamber musician, Antonio Pompa-Baldi is a frequent guest at events like the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, the Music in the Mountains Festival (Durango, CO), Strings in the mountains (Steambot Springs, CO), and the Fort Worth Chamber Music Society Series among others, collaborating with such ensembles as the Takacs and Cavani String Quartets.
Upcoming orchestral engagements for pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi include performances with the Stockton and Pensacola Symphony Orchestras. Recital engagements include Orlando (FL), Fort Worth (TX), Cleveland (OH), the Liszt Society of Eugene (OR), and Corvallis (OR), as well as a tour of South Africa.
Mr. Pompa-Baldi's recordings include an all-Brahms disc (Azica), and a live and unedited recital from his award-winning Cliburn Competition performances (Harmonia Mundi). Since 2002, he has recorded the Josef Rheinberger piano sonatas, as well as the entire piano and chamber music output of Edward Grieg, in 11 volumes, all for Centaur Records. Soon-to-be-released are an all-Rachmaninoff CD, and Three Hummel Sonatas, also for Centaur.
Mr. Pompa-Baldi has been seen and heard many times on French National Television, Radio-France, Ukrainian National television, Cleveland's WCLV, Boston's WGBH, and National Public Radio's "Performance Today", and appeared in the PBS documentary on the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition "Playing on the Edge" which premiered in October 2001 in USA and Canada.
Mr. Pompa-Baldi appeared again on PBS in the documentary "Concerto: A sense of Self", featuring his performance of Prokofiev's Concerto #3 with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and James Conlon. This performance was also seen on French National Television in May, 2003, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Prokofiev's death, as well as throughout Europe.
Antonio Pompa-Baldi is a Steinway Artist. He serves as Distinguished Professor of Piano at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and gives master-classes around the world, both in conjunction with his performing engagements, and at summer festivals including Piano Fest in the Hamptons, TCU-Cliburn Institute, Southeastern Piano Festival (University of South Carolina School of Music), Paisiello Academy (Lucera, Italy), and Napolinova Academy (Naples, Italy). He helped found the Academia Manuel Rueda in Santo Domingo, where he also gives regular masterclasses.
Mr. Pompa-Baldi is often invited to judge international piano competitions, and serves annually as president of the jury for the International Russian Piano Music Competition in San Jose, CA since 2006. He lives in Shaker Heights with his wife, Emanuela, and their daughter, Eleanor.
# # #
BEETHOVEN
Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 19
Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
BRAHMS Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15
CHOPIN Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21
DE FALLA "Noche en los jardines de España" (Night in the gardens of Spain)
FAUR. Ballade, Op.19
FRANCK Symphonic Variations
GRIEG Concerto in A minor, Op. 16
KABALEVSKY Concerto No. 3, Op.50
LISZT
Concerto No. 2 in A major
Totentanz
MACDOWELL 1st Concerto
MENDELSSOHN Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25
MOZART
Concerto K414 in A
Concerto K415 in C
Concerto K453 in G
Concerto K466 in D minor
Concerto No. 23, K488 in A
Concerto for two pianos, K365 in E flat major
POULENC Concerto to two pianos
PROKOFIEV Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26
RACHMANINOFF
Piano Concerto No. 2, Op.18
Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini, Op. 43
RAVEL Concerto in G Major
SAINT-SAENS Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op.22
SCHUMANN Concerto in A minor, Op. 54
SHOSTAKOVICH Concerto No. 2, Op. 102
STRAUSS Burlesque
TCHAIKOVSKY Concerto No. 1
On Tuesday night, February 8, Antonio Pompa-Baldi played an expansive program as part of the Piano Masters Series at Boston Conservatory. Pompa-Baldi, a silver medalist at the Van Cliburn Competition, displayed both technical ability and sensitive musicianship in this ambitious program that featured familiar works from Schubert and Chopin, as well as lesser-known works by Edward Grieg and Giuseppe Martucci.
Known as a champion of Grieg’s piano works, Pompa-Baldi opened the evening with Grieg’s Sonata in E minor, op. 7. This work retains the traditional four-movement format, yet includes a distinctly Scandinavian temperament. The first two movements range from a plaintive, yet martial opening to a lyrical second movement, which features rolling accompaniments well suited to the piano. The third movement is a dark and somber interpretation of a Minuet, a courtly dance in the time of Haydn, which Beethoven soon thereafter transformed; and Pompa-Baldi convincingly brought out its dark and sinister mood. If you’re familiar with Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite, think more of the "In the Hall of the Mountain King" and less of "Morning Mood."
The next work on the program, Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie, op. 61, required an immediate change in mood. The title refers to its roots: Polonaise is a French designation for Poland, Chopin’s native country; and Fantaisie implies a loosely structured musical form. Pompa-Baldi excelled at the delicate, improvisatory nature of this work: the intricate passagework, which featured an ascending arpeggio, required that each hand cross over the other, and the conclusion featured a shimmering, two-handed trill that he handled with ease. Pompa-Baldi made the Chopin sound seamless and intricate, even more so after the heavier work by Grieg.
Martucci’s Fantasia, op. 51, initially grabbed the audience’s attention with acrobatic flourishes, but yielded to a middle section of lyrical passages. In one sense, the first half of the program represented three statements on national character: Grieg’s Scandinavian darkness, Chopin’s Polish music seen through the eyes of a Frenchman, and Martucci’s Italian sense for the dramatic.
The second half of the program was organized around a different principle, the technique of variation. Schubert’s Impromptu in B-flat major, op. 142 appeared just as the Classical period was overtaken by the Romantic, and indeed, this work has a foot in both worlds. It is a theme-and-variations movement, Classical by nature, but also featuing an approach to harmony that is very much rooted in Romanticism. Pompa-Baldi exploited the dual personality of this work extraordinarily, with a sensitive rendering of the second variation, which sounds vaguely like a calliope, and with fantastic flourishes in the fifth variation.
Robert Schumann’s Carnaval, op. 9, a famously difficult work, has twenty-one movements representing different characters –– both real and fictional –– in Schumann’s life. Some of the most notable appearances are: Chopin (#13), Clara Wieck (#12), and Paganni (#17); as well as fictional characters like Eusebius and Florestan, Schumann’s impetuous and idyllic alter egos (#5 and #6), and Pierrot and Arlequin, stock characters from Commedia dell’arte (#2 and #3). Evoking this coterie of subjects is difficult, yet Pompa-Baldi clearly enjoyed the challenge.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -In the 10 years since he won first prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the Italian-born pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi has established a distinguished career as a soloist with major orchestras, as a recitalist, and as a teacher in the United States and internationally.
On Saturday evening, he treated a capacity audience at the Southampton Cultural Center's Levitas Center for the Arts to a concert that brilliantly showcased his extraordinary talent.
The conductor Grant Cooper led the scrupulously polished accompaniment with élan. The myriad little solo moments for winds and strings shone and the horns, trumpets and timpani sounded robust.
This was one of the finest performances I have heard in 18 seasons as a music critic.
The program featured music from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, and all three composers whose works were played, as it happens, had life spans that bridged two centuries. The concert concluded the 2008-2009 season of "Rising Stars" piano recitals, but as Liliane Questel, the series director, correctly noted in her introductory remarks, the word "rising" no longer applies. Mr. Pompa-Baldi is a star—and he is shining brightly.
download the entire articleReinberger Chamber Hall, Severance Hall
Wednesday, Nov. 12
If pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi had a nickel for every note he played Wednesday night at Severance Hall, he'd be a wealthy man. In fact, he'd probably have enough to buy his wife, pianist Emanuela Friscioni, who joined him onstage, a fabulous piece of jewelry. Something, say, by Faberge or Tiffany.
Both musicians certainly deserve some such treasure after their ravishing performances in a concert called "Music of Opulence and Decadence Around 1900," a Viva! & Gala Around Town event conceived by the Cleveland Museum of Art to mirror its current "Artistic Luxury" exhibition.
French music was the focus. But a larger theme about elegance gradually took shape in Reinberger Chamber Hall as works by Faure, Debussy, Arensky and Ravel were presented in order of increasing musical sumptuousness.
First up was Faure's D-Minor Piano Quintet, Op. 89. Heavenly moments abounded as Pompa-Baldi, winner of the 1999 Cleveland International Piano Competition and a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music, rendered music of silken tenderness entirely weightless and the Cavani String Quartet generated gorgeous waves of sound by overlapping their four distinctive sonorities.
Yet the performance remained steadfastly earthbound. Scanning constantly for emotional depth beneath the work's beautiful surface, the quartet maintained an edgy tone that amplified the tension and urgency inherent in the music. Rarely has Faure packed such a wallop.
Lighter fare awaited in Debussy's evocative "Petite Suite" for piano, four hands. But Pompa-Baldi and Friscioni took the four short pieces seriously, turning in performances full of color and animation.
Cranking up the opulence on the second half, the gifted husband-and-wife team sat facing each other at separate instruments to perform Anton Arensky's little-known Suite No. 1 for Two Pianos and Ravel's wildly elaborate "La Valse."
Each of Arensky's three pieces allowed the pianists to indulge their showy sides. What began in the "Romance" as affectionate overtures gradually swelled to full-fledged passion, while the "Waltz" and "Polonaise" movements careened over the top in blazes of ornamental excess.
But the best truly had been saved for last.
Ravel's vision of innocent times past received a cataclysmic performance by Pompa-Baldi and Friscioni, with bubbly dance melodies struggling mightily not to drown in a murky sea of gloom. Here, in the end, was decadence.
Local universities use the West Virginia Symphony's concerts for students to gain fine arts credits. So it was no surprise that the balcony had a number of collegians in it Friday night. One of them left rather noisily through a side door early in Antonio Pompa-Baldi's performance of the slow movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major.
Maybe today's youth can't handle slow music… but I was left wondering, "Does this student realize he is leaving in the middle of the finest performance of a Beethoven concerto I have ever heard?"
I did not hear anything in the rest of the slow movement or the finale to persuade me otherwise. I don't know if Pompa-Baldi is always this exceptional, although his placement in major competitions suggests he can be. To be sure, Friday night, he was stellar.
It was his rhythm that impressed first. He did not fudge shifts among subdivisions of beats, even the often-fuzzy shift from duplets to triplets. That neatness of rhythm aided beautifully crystalline textures.
His tone was never forced or steely. Even in the loudest passages there was remarkable warmth.
In the slow movement, his playing of little cadenzas with difficult thirds and sixths was lucid and the little obbligato figures that float through the final section were perfectly shaped.
The hiccupping theme of the final rondo was rowdy without overheating, and Pompa-Baldi's laser-precise rhythm drove the proceedings nimbly.
The conductor Grant Cooper led the scrupulously polished accompaniment with élan. The myriad little solo moments for winds and strings shone and the horns, trumpets and timpani sounded robust.
This was one of the finest performances I have heard in 18 seasons as a music critic.
Grieg: Works for Piano, Volume 2(Centaur CRC 2712) |
Humoresques, Op. 6 I-IV Album Leaves, Op. 28 I-IV Peer Gynt Suite I, I-IV Peer Gynt Suite II, I-IV Norwegian Dances I-IV |
Live Performances |
Moszkowsky: Etude Op. 72#4 Moszkowsky: Etude Op. 72#6 Moszkowsky: Etude Op. 72#2 Czerny: Variations Op. 33 La Ricordanza Poulenc: Caprice Italien Grieg: Suite Holberg Op. 40, mvmt. 1 Praeludium Grieg: Suite Holberg Op. 40, mvmt. 2 Sarabande Grieg: Suite Holberg Op. 40, mvmt. 3 Gavotte Grieg: Suite Holberg Op. 40, mvmt. 4 Air Grieg: Suite Holberg Op. 40, mvmt. 5 Rigaudon Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Paganini Op. 35, Books 1 and 2 Prokofieff: Etude Op. 2#1 |
