Artist · Cello
Enrico Sorbello
Biography
Enrico Sorbello
Born in Catania, Enrico Sorbello first encountered music through the sound-programming software Aegis Sonix on an Amiga 500 computer.
A teenage passion for the electric bass led him to record with the extreme-rock groups DeadSchizo and Sinoath, while parallel collaborations with Giancarlo Patelmo and Marco Timpanaro introduced him to blues and jazz idioms.
Sorbello later turned decisively to the cello, graduating with distinction from the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia (Rome, 2003) and completing advanced studies in Baroque cello with Enrico Onofri and Dario Lo Cicero (Diploma, 2008). He holds a Master’s degree in Cello Pedagogy from the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano (2010), where he worked under Taisuke Yamashita and Mattia Zappa, and subsequently refined his historical-performance practice with Paolo Beschi.
Active across genres, Sorbello joined the Sicilian Whistling Dixie Band (1999) and appeared the same year at the Rumori Mediterranei Festival in Roccella Jonica. He has performed J. S. Bach’s solo suites in the multidisciplinary production Isole nel sottosuolo (Catania, 2001) and participated in Hans Werner Henze’s opera Pollicino at Teatro Vascello, Rome. He is a founding member of La Follia early-music ensemble (2002) and collaborates regularly with the Palermo collective Curva Minore on free improvisation projects.
Invited by Hermann Nitsch, Sorbello took part in the “Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries” at Prinzendorf Castle (Austria), broadening his experimental credentials. Subsequent highlights include concerts with I Violoncelli di Santa Lucia for the illustrator Francesco Tullio Altan (Susegana Castle, 2017) and the solo recital programme OSTINATO!, presented in 2023 at Centro Zo (Catania) and the Botanical Garden of Palermo.
In 2024 he founded Galatea Irreale, a festival in Acireale devoted to cross-disciplinary explorations of Mediterranean soundscapes. Sorbello’s eclectic trajectory-spanning electronic beginnings, historically informed performance, and contemporary improvisation-nourishes a distinctive cello voice that unites rigorous scholarship with a spirit of unbounded curiosity.