Duo Porto-Frontini

Duo Porto-Frontini was formed in 2007 by Ileana Frontini and Paolo Porto, both active as soloists and chamber musicians, for a fundraising concert at the oncology hospital in Carrara. Alongside the traditional piano-duet repertoire, they explore orchestral transcriptions in the nineteenth-century tradition. Their programmes range from the Baroque to the twentieth century, combining established four-hand works, new arrangements and music commissioned from contemporary composers.

The duo won competitions including Piove di Sacco, Città di Montalto and Città di Genova. They attended masterclasses with Jürgen Margulis and András Schiff and, in the summers of 2010 and 2011, studied with Joseph Paratore at the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg. Invited to perform in the academy’s concert programme, they played Porto’s original composition Cherchez la femme for two pianos.

Their appearances in Italy have included concerts in Imperia, Carrara, Padua, Rome, Milan and Venice. They have performed for Piano City, Expo Milano, the Festival delle Cinque Giornate in Milan, the Festival di Bellagio e del Lago di Como, the Festival delle Nazioni in Rome, Amici della Musica di Imperia, Il Faro di Tevennac in Benevento, Note Romantiche in Verbania and the Associazione Rachmaninoff in Salerno.

Their recordings include releases for Archivi del Novecento and Music from a Parallel World for MAP, featuring contemporary works written for them. They also recorded Friedrich Kuhlau’s violin sonatas and music for piano four hands for Brilliant Classics. On The Three Penny Piano for Da Vinci Classics, they perform Paolo Porto’s arrangements of music by Johann Strauss, Kurt Weill, Darius Milhaud and Antonio Vivaldi.