Carl Nielsen: Complete Violin Sonatas

Born in 1988, Germana Porcu began her musical studies with Fulvio Cusano and graduated with highest honours from the G. Donizetti Institute in Bergamo. In 2010 she received Bergamo’s Premio Rotary as the best graduating student. She joined the Orchestra Bergamo Musica Festival at the Teatro Donizetti in 2006, touring Italy, Japan and Sweden. In 2009 she performed Giya Kancheli’s In l’istesso tempo under the composer’s guidance, earning his warm appreciation.

Her competition awards include first prize at the third International Chamber Music Competition Miryam and Pierluigi Vacchelli; first prize at the eleventh International Music Competition Italian Festival, together with the Soloist with Orchestra special prize, which led to a performance of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, K. 219, with the Orchestra Alessandria Classica; third prize at the thirtieth Michelangelo Abbado International Violin Competition, where neither first nor second prize was awarded; and first prize in the Soloist with Orchestra category of the twenty-sixth European Music Competition. She also received a scholarship donated by Claudio Abbado.

In 2013 she was named Most Distinguished Violinist at the Ibla Grand Prize. In 2015 she won third prize at the fifth Concurso y Festival Internacional de Músicos in Madrid, making her debut in the city to the appreciation of the audience and jury president Victor Abramyan, professor of violin at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory.

She has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland and Spain. Her studies have included work with Fulvio Cusano in Fiesole, Stéphane Gessner in Paris and Klaidi Sahatci in Lugano, as well as masterclasses with Igor Volochine, Svetlana Makarova and Pavel Vernikov. In 2015 she began performing in a duo with pianist Sara Costa; together with cellist Matilda Colliard, they founded Trio Carducci.

Described by Pizzicato Magazine as embodying “wonderfully pensive and subtly shaded musicianship”, Italian pianist Sara Costa is a regular performer in major cities and chamber music festivals worldwide.

Sara has performed in Europe, China, Japan and Israel. Her appearances include performances at the Royal Albert Hall and St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, at the hr-Sendesaal in Frankfurt, at the Grunewaldsalen in Stockholm, at the Hukvaldy Festival in the Czech Republic, in the Zagreb Concert Hall in Croatia, at the Ptuj Festival in Slovenia, for the Edinburgh Society of Musicians in Scotland and at the 37th Sandviken Chamber Music Festival in Sweden.

Outside Europe, highlights include China (Beijing National Library Arts Centre, Tianjin Grand Theatre, Chengdu Concert Hall, Yangzhou Grand Theatre and Harbin Concert Hall), Japan (Phoenix Hall in Osaka and Opus Hall in Hyogo) and Israel (Eilat Festival).

In Italy Sara Costa has performed in Rome for “I Concerti del Quirinale” live on Radio3 and at Auditorium Parco della Musica, in Sala Puccini in Milan for “Società dei Concerti”, at Fazioli Concert Hall in Sacile, at Teatro Donizetti and Sala Piatti in Bergamo, just to name a few.

As a soloist, she worked with Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana, Roma Tre Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica of Chioggia, Orchestra “Il Clavicembalo Verde” in Milan and she stood out for her captivating performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2.

Praised for her “elegant and sensitive playing”, Sara Costa developed her growing passion for Romantic and twentieth-century repertoire thanks to her teachers.

She brings with her the Italian piano school combined with Russian piano tradition.

Sara Costa began to study piano at the age of 8 and grew up in a small village in the North of Italy in a family of music lovers.

After graduating with full marks and honours from the "G. Donizetti" Conservatory in Bergamo – Italy, since 2007 Sara Costa has embraced the Russian piano school studying for many years with the pianist and internationally renowned pedagogue Konstantin Bogino (founder of the legendary Tchaikovsky Trio) and his assistants Svetlana Bogino and Vladimir Ogarkov (pupil of Emil Gilels).

In addition Sara has also been selected to participate in many prestigious masterclasses at important institutions such as the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris with Norma Fisher, Sergei Dorensky, Andrzej Jasinski, Vasilly Lobanov, Pavel Gililov, Mats Widlund, Alexei Kornienko, Marian Rybicki and Martin Roscoe.

Sara’s charismatic musicianship and devotion to chamber music have created numerous human and artistic collaborations across the globe and given rise to chamber music projects.

Since 2014 Sara Costa has performed in a widely appreciated piano duo with her husband, the pianist Fabiano Casanova.

Costa’s first solo album “Correspondences”, released by Da Vinci Classics, received enthusiastic reviews in specialist magazines such as “Rivista Musica”, Pizzicato Magazine and MusicWeb International.

She has also recorded chamber music albums for Brilliant Classics, Da Vinci Classics, Wide Classique, Digressione Label, always praised by international critics.

Her concerts have been broadcast by Italian radio stations including Rai, Classic Radio and Vatican Radio.

Sara's interest in synaesthetic experiences in music led her to create the cultural association “Cluster” with the aim of promoting music and projects that bring different art forms together. In 2016 she launched her inaugural chamber music festival – “Il Castello Armonico” – in her hometown. Combining music, art, the promotion of young musicians, the festival invites artists and audiences to enjoy music in places other than major city theatres.

Believing in the healing power of music, she has often performed in hospitals, retirement homes and prisons.

Sara is also a dedicated teacher with more than fifteen years of experience.

Her teaching has included work at the L. Marenzio Conservatory in Brescia and she is the co-founder of Recanati Piano Campus, an innovative concept of summer piano masterclass.

Her love of sharing emotion and musical experiences has established Sara among the finest pianists of her generation.

Carl Nielsen (b Sortelung, nr Nørre Lyndelse, Funen, 9 June 1865; d Copenhagen, 3 Oct 1931). Danish composer. One of the most important and free-spirited of the generation of composers who straddle the 19th and 20th centuries, his music covers a wide range of styles, from Brahmsian Romanticism at the outset to a high-principled, personal brand of neo-classicism in his last years. He composed in virtually all the main genres of the time, but he is best known for his six symphonies, which significantly contributed to the renewal of the genre in the 20th century. In Denmark he has been equally revered for his large output of popular strophic songs, which helped to redefine the national song tradition. His activities as conductor, teacher and writer made him the most prominent and influential Danish musician of his time, and although international recognition was sporadic in his lifetime, it has grown steadily since the 1950s, especially in Britain and the USA.

The outward defining points of Nielsen's career are his childhood on the island of Funen (1865–84), his studies and early freelance years in Copenhagen (1884–9), his post as second violin in the Royal Chapel (the opera orchestra resident at the Royal Theatre; 1889–1905), his conductorship of the same orchestra (1905–14; salaried from 1908), his years of marital crisis, renewed freelance activity and travel (1914–22), and his last decade (1922–31), when his creative activities were hampered by administrative duties and illness. The onset of the crisis years in 1914 is clearly reflected in his music. Until that time Nielsen's musical and philosophical horizons were steadily expanding; afterwards his continued explorations encountered increasingly inimical forces, leading to a more acerbic and concentrated style.