Danila Tomassetti

Danila Tomassetti
Praised for her emotional playing and richness of sound, Italian concert pianist Danila Tomassetti has performed in various cities in Italy, for prestigious music societies among which Teatro Marrucino (Chieti), Teatro Massari (Rimini), Accademia Musicale Pescarese and Luigi Barbara Society of Concerts (Pescara); Concerts of Villa Torlonia, Brazilian Embassy, Russian Institute of Culture and Concerti del Tempietto (Rome), Festival A Due Voci (Como).

Abroad, she performed in Sweden for the world-renowned Aurora Chamber Music Festival; in Malta, Germany and Belgium, and in the Washington DC area (USA).

Danila began studying piano at the age of eight, graduating with Honors under the guidance of Professor Ester Ponziani at the “Luisa D’Annunzio” Conservatory of Pescara, where she also attended Chamber Music classes with Maestro Eduardo Hubert.

She improved with Konstantin Bogino at AIM Academy in Rome and took part as effective student in Masterclasses held by world-renowned Professors like Giuliano Mazzoccante, Jerome Lowenthal, Alexander Kobrin, Pavel Gililov, Nina Tichmann, Lilya Zilberstein, who had a huge influence on her musicianship.

In 2016, The Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art from The Catholic University of America, Washington DC, awarded her a Full Scholarship to pursue her Doctorate in Piano Performance under the guidance of Professor Nikita Fitenko, successfully completed in 2019.

She is prizewinner in international piano competitions both for piano solo and chamber music, such as “European Music Competition- Città di Moncalieri”, Concorso “Euterpe”- Corato, Concorso “Lia Tortora” - Città della Pieve, "First International Piano Competition in Italy" (Alink-Argerich Foundation), "Ibla Grand Prize". She has also been the recipient of Special Prizes for her performances of Scarlatti and Shchedrin, and in 2017 she won the Luciana Montanari-Mendola Award for the best University student showing promise in piano performance in the Washington DC Area.

Her repertoire is wide, ranging from the Baroque Era to contemporary music, with predilection for the Romantic and 20th Century Russian repertoire. Danila is constantly premiering new contemporary music works, in collaboration with both the Composition Department of the Catholic University of America and other contemporary composers from the DC area.

Since she was 18 years old, she has been passionately dedicated to piano instruction and music theory teaching, both in Italy and, while pursuing her Doctorate, in the Washington DC area. She is a member of the WPTA, World Piano Teachers Association.

Eventually, Danila holds a Master in Classical Archaeology from the University “G. D’Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara, Italy, and has always been interested in merging the study and practice of Music with Classics. Her final thesis "L'estasi musicale e poetica nella rappresentazione figurata greca di VI-V sec. a.C." has been published on First Drafts Online by the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University.