Fanny Azzuro
Biography
Fanny Azzuro is a 31-year-old French pianist with Italian roots. She is known to have a 'fiery and endearing personality' and is now a major player in the piano world in France as well as in Asia and, more recently in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.
Born in the South of France, Fanny trained in Montpellier then at the Paris National Conservatoire, as well as the prestigious Accademia Pianistica Internazionale in Imola (Italy) and finally at the Helsinki Sibelius Academy. Among her many professors were Boris Petrushansky, Vladimir Viardo, Dmitri Bashkirov, Dominique Merlet, Denis Pascal, Jay Gottlieb, Gisèle Magnan, Tuija Hakkila, Olivier Gardon, Jacques Rouvier and Laurent Cabasso.
Curious about all types of acoustic music, Fanny Azzuro is fascinated by the merging of the so-called 'classical' repertoire with, for instance, jazz, when performing with the pianist Hervé Sellin. Her musical journey does not stop there though, as she is also a member of SpiriTango, a quartet which celebrates the tango, where she plays alongside three musicians who, like her, were classically trained.
Creative, inventive and adventurous, this young pianist is eager to perform for the wider public. With that in mind, she took her piano onto the streets of Paris, accompanied by two dancers. A film was made of this event to publicise the release of her second album, widely acclaimed by the international press. 'Music should not be played just to an elite audience, it should reach out to a wider public.'
Alongside these experiences and her encounters with other styles of music, Fanny Azzuro is a really talented soloist in her own right. She has performed in prestigious venues throughout the world: Seoul Arts Center, Brussels Studio Flagey, Salle Colonne, Salle Cortot, Invalides, Archives Nationales and Théâtre Adyar in Paris, Cincinnati Art Museum, Salzburg Mozarteum, Montpellier Salle Pasteur, Shanghai Daning Theatre, Abu Dhabi National Theatre, Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Charleroi Palais des beaux-arts, Malaga Maria Christina Hall, Metz Opera. She is regularly invited to perform at the following radio stations: France Musique, France Inter, Radio Classique, RTBF, Abu Dhabi Classic FM. These past few years, she also played at the following festivals: Auvers-sur-Oise, Radio France Montpellier, Musiq'3, Annecy Classic, Pablo Casals, Pianos Folies in France and, in the USA, at the Texas Piano Festival, Bowdoin Music Festival and New York Piano Festival.
Bach, Schumann, Debussy, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Kapustin… Fanny Azzuro likes performing, doing recitals and concerts with an orchestra, but could not imagine life without chamber music. This is a passion she shares with her collaborators from all walks of life, such as the Van Kuijk quartet, the Voce quartet, les pianists Simon Ghraichy and Tigran Hamasyan, the violinists Kristi Gjezi (soloist at the Monte-Carlo orchestra), Solenne Païdassi, Sora Han, Edwin Kim, Vanessa Szigeti, Guillaume Latour and also the horn players Pierre Azzuro (her brother, soloist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin), André Cazalet (soloist at the Orchestre de Paris) and Bertrand Châtenet (soloist at the Konzerthaus Berlin).
She has already recorded five albums. In 2014, her first solo recording celebrated the Russian soul: Russian Impulse, 'an invigorating album' released by Paraty/Harmonia Mundi, was hailed by the international critics (**** BBC Music Magazine, *** Classica, La Croix, Crescendo, Musikzen…). Her second solo album, Impressions 1905, was published by Paraty in May 2017: 'A remarkable album and a young pianist to keep an eye on… Indispensable'.
With SpiriTango, she devoted an album to Piazzolla, released in 2013 by Polymnie, noted for its amazing energy, then in 2015, Paraty published a second CD, 'a bubbly and stimulating album'. The CD Passerelles will come out in autumn 2017, the fruit of her collaborations with the pianist Hervé Sellin and his jazz quartet.
Sponsored by the Mécénat Musical Société Générale, the Safran Foundation for music, the Spedidam, the Adami and the Meyer Foundation, she has been involved in many other musical projects. She also won awards at many international competitions, including the World Piano Competition in Cincinnati (US), Lalla Meryem in Rabat (Morocco), the Washington International Piano Competition (US) and Piano Campus in Pontoise (France). Fanny Azzuro is a Yamaha artist.
