Francesco Venga

Francesco Venga, Viola

Francesco Venga began his musical studies at a very early age and graduated from the Domenico Cimarosa Conservatory in Avellino in violin and viola with top marks. From 2011 to 2017 he specialized as a violist with Maestro Bruno Giuranna at the W. Stauffer Academy in Cremona and at the Chigiana Academy in Siena, where he was awarded the diploma of honor in 2013. In 2017, as a member of the Quartetto Felix, he graduated in Chamber Music at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, in the class of Maestro Carlo Fabiano, with highest honours.

He has played in chamber music ensembles with musicians Salvatore Accardo, Rocco Filippini, Franco Petracchi, Bruno Giuranna and Antonio Meneses and  has received awards in numerous national and international competitions in which he participated as a soloist or chamber musician including the M. Antonelli Competition in Latina;  the Rospigliosi Competition in Lamporecchio and the Mirabello in Musica Competition presided over by Maestro Bruno Canino).

 In September 2015 he won the Fondazione Petruzzelli Competition in Bari for the position of orchestral violist and in September 2017 he won the competition for second violist at the Istituzione Sinfonica Abruzzese. Since 2015 he has obtained professional recognition through various auditions and works with Teatro di San Carlo as a guest musician. Since January 2019 he has played with the Tuscany Regional Orchestra as first viola.

Composers such as Dusan Bogdanovic and Angelo Gilardino have written for him and he has collaborated with them on these scores edited by Doberman-Yppan and Bèrben.

In 2017, the Stradivarius label published Intersezioni, a disc in which, as a member of the Opera Reading Ensemble, he played the Elogio della filosofia in the form of Decalogue, opera-reading with music by Rosalba Quindici and Giulia Lorusso and texts by Rosario Diana. The same Rosalba Quindici dedicated  Rami come cristalli  for viola and ensemble to him, premiered at the Festival 5 Giornate per la Nuova Musica in Milan in 2015, together with the Ensemble Zenit 2000.

Parallel to these concert performances, having qualified in teaching an instrument, he has also devoted time to teaching in secondary schools. He has played a purple Eva and Christo Marino viola since 2014.

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