Nicola Campanella

Nicola Campanella
Born in 1980, Nicola Campanella graduated with top honours in percussion from the Conservatorio “G.F.

Ghedini” in Cuneo, under the guidance of Riccardo Balbinutti and Paolo Tini. Awarded the Master dei Talenti Musicali scholarship by Fondazione CRT, he pursued further specialisation at the Conservatorio “G. Verdi” in Turin, studying with Claudio Romano and Cristiano Pirola. He refined his skills in marimba and vibraphone through masterclasses with Lee Howard Stevens, Eric Sammut, Daniele Di Gregorio, and Mike Mainieri, and has appeared as soloist with various orchestras on both instruments.
Campanella was awarded first prize at the International Competition “Città di Stresa” for marimba. He has performed with several symphonic and operatic orchestras, including the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, the Teatro Regio Orchestra of Turin, the Verdi Orchestra of Milan, the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Asti Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Piedmont, and has taken part in concert tours across France, Belgium, and Switzerland.
He has also collaborated with leading contemporary music ensembles such as Milan’s Divertimento Ensemble, Antidogma Musica, and the Fiarì Ensemble of Turin, participating in premières of works by Enrico Correggia, Willy Merz, Helmut Lachenmann, and Mauricio Kagel. His discography includes numerous recordings, including one for the Amadeus magazine with the early music ensemble Zefiro.
Since 2003, he has served as timpanist with the Bartolomeo Bruni Orchestra in Cuneo, taking part for over twenty years in the widely broadcast “Ferragosto Concert” on Italian national television (RAI). Passionate about ethnic and contemporary music, he has studied with internationally renowned artists including Marco Fadda, Marco Volpe, Marco Fossati, Gilson Silveira, Sankha Chatterjee, Levent Yıldırım, and Misirli Ahmet.
His eclectic career includes collaborations with the band Too Young To Love, performing at major international festivals such as Exit Festival (Serbia) and Offset Festival (London). In the field of jazz, he has played with A. Mandarini, M.P. De Vito, The New York Voices, and Dee Dee Bridgewater. In the pop sphere, he performed marimba at the 2020 Sanremo Festival in Emma Marrone’s song Stupida Allegria. He has also taught and delivered masterclasses at conservatoires, music-focused secondary schools, and civic music institutions.