Luigi graduated in cello and chamber music under Radu Aldulescu and was principal cellist of Concerto Italiano, directed by Rinaldo Alessandrini. In 1999 he was chosen by Maurizio Pollini to take part in the “Pollini Project” at the Salzburg Festival, Carnegie Hall in New York, Tokyo, and Rome. He has performed chamber music with artists such as Sawallisch, Chung, Lonquich, Lucchesini, Sitkovetsky, Kavakos, and the Labèque sisters. Since 2005 he has performed regularly in duo with Antonio Pappano and appeared as a soloist with orchestras such as the Tokyo Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Seoul Philharmonic, and Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, under conductors such as Chung, Menuhin, Nagano, Pappano, and Pletnev. A recording of the Brahms cello sonatas, made with Pappano, was released in 2020.
Luigi has been principal cello of the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia for more than twenty years. He plays a Francesco Ruggeri cello, known as “il Per” (Cremona, 1692), kindly lent by Francesco Micheli. He is also very active as a conductor, having collaborated with soloists such as Bacalov, Bollani, Brunello, De Maria, Lupo, Mingardo, and Sitkovetsky, and has recorded for Naxos, Eloquentia, and Arcana. Since 2013 Luigi has been a regular conductor of the Archi di Santa Cecilia, with which he has released six albums. His conducting engagements in recent years include concerts with many of Italy’s leading orchestras and, abroad, his debut with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and, in 2022, with the Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg, where he was invited back in March 2023 and February 2024. In 2022 Luigi also made his debut with the Milan Symphony Orchestra and conducted Tosca at the Teatro Bellini in Catania.
