RICCARDO ZADRA

BIOGRAPHY

For more than forty years, Riccardo Zadra has pursued a wide-ranging career as a solo and chamber pianist, teacher, researcher and author, with a long-standing interest in the application of human potential development to musical practice.

As a soloist, he has performed for major international institutions including the Musikhalle in Hamburg, the Chopin Festival in Poland, RTSI in Lugano, the Serate Musicali in Milan and the International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo, and has collaborated with leading orchestras such as the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Chile Symphony Orchestra, the RAI Symphony Orchestra, the Mantua Chamber Orchestra and the Sicilian Symphony Orchestra.
His repertoire ranges from Bach to Ligeti. He has performed the complete piano works of Debussy, including two Italian premieres, and has taken part in numerous concerts on historical instruments, among them a complete cycle of Beethoven’s piano sonatas at the GOG in Genoa. For the Gallo label, he recorded a CD devoted to the piano works of Bizet, including several world premiere recordings, which received enthusiastic reviews from both American and European critics.

He maintains an active career as a chamber musician with the Hèsperos Piano Trio, which he founded together with Filippo Lama and Stefano Guarino. With the trio he recorded, for the Tactus label, a CD devoted to Italian chamber music (Clementi, Martucci and Casella).
He has also collaborated with musicians such as Antonio Ballista, mezzo-soprano Lucia Rizzi and Fulvio Luciani, with whom he recorded the complete Schumann sonatas for violin and piano (released on Classica/Sky and Amadeus).

He performs regularly as a piano duo with Federica Righini. In May 2026, Da Vinci Classics released their recording of Brahms’s String Quintets Op. 88 and Op. 111 in the composer’s own four-hand piano versions, performed on a historical Streicher piano. The recording has received highly favourable reviews in Fanfare, MusicVoice and OperaTeatro.

He is Professor of Piano at the Conservatory of Vicenza. From 1998 to 2013 he founded and directed the International Piano Academy of Padua, with Aldo Ciccolini as Honorary President.
Together with Federica Righini, he has for many years conducted research into the psychophysiological aspects of musical interpretation, which resulted in the publication of Maestro di te stesso. A practical guide to the musician’s personal and artistic development (Edizioni Curci, 2010; currently available in Italian only).

He graduated with honours and special distinction from the “C. Monteverdi” Conservatory in Bolzano and completed his advanced studies at the École Internationale de Piano in Lausanne with Fausto Zadra. He later studied with Aldo Ciccolini and attended advanced courses with Nikita Magaloff, Carlo Zecchi, Hans Leygraf and Yvonne Lefébure.
In 1988 he was awarded Second Prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition, together with the Audience Prize and several special prizes.