DUO SABATINI - RUGANI
SIMONE RUGANI
Born in 1993 and graduated at the age of 17 with top marks from the ISSM Mascagni in Livorno under the guidance of Professor Nadia Lencioni, Simone Rugani has performed at numerous festivals in Italy and abroad (including the "Aurora Star Music Festival" 2012 (SWE) with maestros Urban Agnas and Jonas Bylund, the AsiagoFestival 2017 with Duccio Beluffi and Claudio Pasceri).
As a soloist, Simone won first prize at the 26th International Piano Competition "Città di Albenga" and the National Competition "Nuova Coppa Pianisti d'Italia" (4th edition) in Osimo.
He recorded a CD/DVD of music by the composer Cesare Galeotti and a CD with music by Debussy and Stravinsky for the Musikstrasse prize, won as part of the "Campus delle Arti" 2013.
He also participated in the recording of the complete Prokofiev sonatas by the Padua Conservatory, recording Sonata No. 8.
He perfected his skills with Laura Pietrocini, Fabrizio Datteri, Aquiles delle Vigne, Mats Widlund, Boris Berman, Pavel Gililov, Maria Grazia Bellocchio and Pier Narciso Masi.
In 2019, he earned a second-level master's degree with honors from the Padua Conservatory under Konstantin Bogino. A passionate chamber musician, he regularly performs in various ensembles, including clarinetist Kevin Spagnolo (with whom he has also performed for the Associazione Musicale Lucchese, Bologna Festival, Perugia Classica, Amici della Musica di Firenze, and Filarmonica Laudamo Messina), Simon Zhu (1st Paganini Prize 2023, with whom he regularly performs in Italy), Erica Piccotti, Tommaso Lonquich, Matteo Rocchi, and Francesco Gatti.
Simone also graduated in mathematics from the University of Pisa with a thesis on the upsampling of audio files and is a tenured professor of chamber music at the Perosi Conservatory in Campobasso.