THE ARTIST
David Russell
Opening concert, Scuola della Carità, Saturday 6th , 8 pm
David Russell returns to Festival Homenaje, after the great success of his recitals and masterclasses at Barco Teatro during the previous 4 editions and will play at the Sala dei Giganti where he performed in 1970, when he was invited by the Centro Chitarristico Veneto at the beginning of his career. It is now not only a great honour for the Festival to feature his concert again, but also a moment of great emotion and memory for the city of Padua, as well as for the guitarist himself.
Grammy Award winner in 2005 for his CD “Aire Latino” in the category of best instrumental soloist in classical music, with an Honorary Doctorate in Music by the University of Arizona in Tucson in 2014 and inducted into the Guitar Foundation of America Hall of Fame in 2018, classical guitarist David Russell is world-renowned for his musical and artistic sensibility. He has received numerous and prestigious awards worldwide, of which we will only mention a few: he was nominated a member of the Royal Academy of Music of London in 1997; in 2003, he was awarded the honour of being made "adopted son" of Es Migjor, the city of Menorca where he grew up (which later named a street after him, "Avinguda David Russell"); in November 2003 he was awarded the Medal of Honour by the Conservatory of the Balearics; in 2005 the Vigo Auditorium was named after him and in 2009 he was named honorary member of "Amigos de la Guitarra", the oldest guitar society in Spain.
David Russell has released more than 17 solo albums.
He also started the “David Russell y Marìa Jesùs” NGO, providing support to developing countries (including by financing projects for water extraction and access to safe drinking water in Africa).
He is an active concert artist, appearing regularly in some of the world’s most prestigious venues (including New York, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Madrid, Toronto and Seoul) and holding popular masterclasses.
www.davidrussellguitar.com
Giacomo Susani – Anna Cavaliero
Voice and Guitar Duo, Barco Teatro, Sunday 7th, 8 pm
The concert brings two established musicians together on stage once again, soprano Anna Cavaliero and guitarist-composer Giacomo Susani (artistic director of the Festival), whose collaboration began in 2021 in the UK on the occasion of an important event at the Great Hall of St Bartholomew's Hospital in London of the prestigious City Music Foundation.
Anna Cavaliero
British-Hungarian soprano Anna Cavaliero is a member of the fest ensemble of the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater. In the 2024/5 season her roles include Zerlina (Mozart/Don Giovanni), Frasquita (Bizet/Carmen), Hanako (Hosokawa/Hanjo), Belinda (Purcell/Dido and Aeneas) and Valencienne (Lehár/Die Lustige Witwe). She was formerly in Opera Fuoco’s Atelier Lyrique under David Stern in Paris, and the opera studio of the Opéra de Lyon. Further artist schemes have included City Music Foundation, Handel House Talent, Opera Prelude, Britten Pears and Samling.
In 2024, Anna made her debut at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre as Mme DuVal in Giant by Sarah Angliss, and she returned to the Royal Opera House to perform extracts of Die Zauberflöte as Pamina in a main stage schools performance conducted by Richard Hetherington.
Further operatic roles have included Governess (Britten/The Turn of the Screw) for Deborah Warner’s opera season at Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio; Susanna (Mozart/Le Nozze di Figaro) at the Festival Les Étoiles du Classique; Grace (Samantha Fernando/glass human) Glyndebourne on Tour; Atalanta (Handel/Serse) at Opera Holland Park; Soliste (Blacher/Romeo and Juliet) at Opéra de Lyon; Musetta (Puccini/La Bohème) at the Festival de la Grange aux Pianos; Ninfa and cover La Musica (Monteverdi/Orfeo) at Garsington Opera; Die Prinzessin (Maxwell-Davies/The Hogboon) at Philharmonie de Luxembourg; Zerlina (Mozart/Don Giovanni), Belinda (Purcell/ Dido and Aeneas) and Fairy (Purcell/The Fairy Queen) at Waterperry Opera Festival; Fortuna/ Damigella/ Venere (Monteverdi/ L’incoronazione di Poppea), and cover Euridice (Gluck/Orfeo ed Euridice) at Longborough Festival Opera; Galatea (Handel/Acis and Galatea, serenata in tre parti) at Snape Maltings; Barbarina (Mozart/Le Nozze di Figaro) at Théâtre Blossac; Mab/ Adelaide (Dove/The Enchanted Pig) at Jacksons Lane Theatre.
Anna and pianist Sebastian Issler were awarded the Jean Meikle Duo Prize in the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition 2022. She also performs regularly in recital with Sholto Kynoch, including at the Oxford International Song Festival, Leicester International Music Festival and LiedFest Berlin-Oxford. Further chamber music collaborators include The Brook Street Band, Sounds Baroque, Fuoco Obbligato, The London Mozart Players, The Temple Players, The Echéa Quartet, and The Academy of Ancient Music. 2024 saw the release of a song disc, ‘Songs of Faust’ for Champs Hill Records, and Anna also appears on John Weldon’s ‘The Judgement of Paris’ with the Academy of Ancient Music, released in 2025.
Anna holds degrees from Trinity College, Cambridge and The Royal College of Music, London and a Postgradualerlehrgang Gesang from the Mozarteum Universität Salzburg, where she studied with Barbara Bonney.
www.annacavaliero.com
Giacomo Susani
His multifaceted activity allowed him to build collaborations with artists coming from a variety of disciplines: from working closely with the late guitarist Julian Bream, to collaborating with British film director Sally Potter and most recently with poet Chinwe D. John and USA’s PBS for the popular television show “Now Hear This”.
As a guitarist he conducts a busy performing career across Europe and the USA and, as a composer, his music is played and recorded all around the world, by some of the most active musicians of today’s international scene: among these are the Boulder Chamber Orchestra, New York Chamber Orchestra, Takács Quartet, Quartetto Goldberg, Quartetto Indaco, Stefano Grondona, David Russell and Jason Vieaux. On May 30th 2024 he debuted at New York’s Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall), performing Fantasia for Guitar and Small Orchestra of his own composition, accompanied by the Chamber Orchestra of New York.
In 2025 he was commissioned by Fondazione Società dei Concerti di Milano to compose “Nowrutz”, a piece for orchestra which will be premiered by the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz on June 3rd 2026 at Milano’s Sala Verdi.
His early career was supported by prestigious foundations, including The Julian Bream Trust, The Countess of Munster Musical Trust, the Park Lane Group, The Worshipful Company of Musicians and the City Music Foundation. He was the winner of several international awards, among which the London International Guitar Competition (2016) and the New York Respighi Prize in Composition (2022) stand out.
Giacomo was a guitar teacher at the Junior Department of the Royal Academy of Music (London) from 2019 to 2023, is currently artistic director of the “Homenaje” International Guitar Festival (Padova) and co-artistic director and teacher of the Residenze Erranti project in Italy.
In 2022 and 2023 respectively he was awarded two Golden Guitars by the “Convegno Internazionale di Chitarra di Milano”. He is a D’Addario artist since 2018.
In 2025 he was awarded the title of Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) by the London institution of the same name, an award intended for alumni who have distinguished themselves in their professional career.
He studied guitar with Stefano Grondona and Michael Lewin, composition with Stephen Goss and Francesco Antonioni.
His work has recently interested him in orchestral conducting, which he is studying under the mentorship of Alessandro Cadario and Gilberto Serembe.
Duo Ramelli-Savigni
Guitar Duo, Barco Teatro, Wednsday 10th, 8 pm
Guitarists Marco Ramelli and Enrica Savigni are, like David Russell and Stephen Goss, two “long-time” friends of Festival Homenaje, having always participated in all the editions bringing their particular contribution regarding the themes of historical guitar making and musical interpretation through these instruments.
Despite having different personalities and individual artistic paths, the common interest in the exploration of the sounds and construction of historical instruments (Marco applied to the Spanish tradition and the evolution of the modern guitar, Enrica to 19th Century instrument instead), the musical duo was formed to explore the particular dialogue between the different sound of their instruments, sharing the timbral charm that comes from their combination.
In 2025 the first album of the “A Tempo Rubato” series will be released, including romantic repertoire, as part of a research project on the perception of the nuances of time.
Marco Ramelli
Marco is a lecturer at TU Dublin Conservatoire, approaching music with curiosity and a spirit of research.
As a guitarist, his interests range from contemporary music to historical performance on period instruments. He investigates the relationship between instrument and interpretation, particularly by developing projects aimed at enhancing tactile sensitivity. He has performed worldwide, appearing in important venues as a soloist and chamber musician. He has recorded several albums, including the guitar music of Roberto Gerhard and Federico Mompou, as well as Mompou’s piano transcriptions.
His research interests span performance practice, music cognition, and organology, with a recent focus on trauma, disability, and their impact on creativity. In 2022, he contributed The Influence of the Spanish Civil War on Roberto Gerhard’s Guitar Music to Roberto Gerhard: Re-appraising a Musical Visionary (Oxford University Press). His latest research examines the contributions of blind musicians to the evolution of the guitar.
As a composer, Marco gained international recognition by winning the World Guitar Composition Competition in Serbia. His works are performed worldwide by leading soloists, including Sean Shibe, Andrea Dieci, Lorenzo Micheli, and Andrea De Vitis. Collaboration is central to his artistic path, leading to numerous premieres of works dedicated to him.
Marco holds a Phd in Performing arts from the University of St Andrews and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, focusing on performer-composer collaboration.
He began studying guitar with Andrea Dieci, and obtained his guitar diploma as an external candidate at the Conservatorio di Musica Giuseppe Verdi in Milan. He later earned two postgraduate diplomas, one in guitar and one in chamber music, from the Conservatorio di Musica Luca Marenzio in Brescia. He completed a Master’s in Performance (APEL) with distinction at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, studying guitar with Alan Neave and composition with Rory Boyle. He completed a postgraduate course in organology at the University of Edinburgh and he has collaborated with many luthiers.
Marco uses a historic guitar purchased with the support of Music Network’s Music Capital Scheme, funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. Music Network is funded by The Arts Council.
www.marcoramelli.com
Enrica Savigni
Enrica is an Italian multi-instrumentalist with a diverse range of musical experiences, currently focused on the study of instruments and repertoire from the Classical-Romantic period.
Her interest in historical instruments began in 2011, when she participated in the 19th-century guitar masterclass at Milan’s Civica Scuola di Musica “Claudio Abbado” with Duo Maccari-Pugliese, graduating in 2013. She obtained a Master of Arts in Music Performance from the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Brussels in 2021, studying in the Early Music department with Maestro Xavier Diaz Latorre. Prior to that, she studied classical guitar and clarinet at the Conservatorio “A. Boito” in Parma, graduating in 2010 and 2014, respectively.
Enrica is an active performer, engaged in both solo and chamber music projects. She regularly collaborates in a duo with Marco Ramelli (guitarist) and with Laura Savigni (fortepianist), performing the original 19th-century repertoire for guitar and piano on period instruments. Her discography includes several releases: “Giuliani-Moscheles-Mertz”, Movimento Classical (2019, released by the Italian music magazine “Amadeus”); “Für Beethoven: Music for Fortepiano and Guitar Inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven”, MP Editions (2020); “Unruhe: New Transcriptions for Guitar and Piano” (2024); “J. N. Hummel: Pot-pourri” Vol.1, NovAntiqua Records (2025).
She regularly gives masterclasses and participates in conferences, including the Perform_Live Festival in Dublin, the Congresso Guitarristico de Braga (Portugal), the Society for Musicology in Ireland, and the Mikulov Guitar Festival (Repubblica ceca).
Enrica is currently a DMus researcher at TU Dublin Conservatoire, a freelance performer, and a guitar tutor at Maynooth University (Ireland).
Marco and Enrica are involved in various initiatives aimed at empowering the guitar community and creating opportunities for young artists to connect and explore their artistry. These include the TouchTheSound Project, a collaboration with Gabriele Lodi that focuses on performance practice, ancient instruments, and historical repertoire, and the Residenze Erranti project, a program of artistic residencies created in partnership with Giacomo Susani.
www.duosavigni.it
Lorenzo Micheli
Musica di luci e ombre Barco Teatro, venerdì 12 ore 20.00
Lorenzo Micheli è impegnato da tre decenni in un’intensa attività artistica che lo ha portato in 25 paesi europei, in trecento città di Stati Uniti e Canada, in Africa, Asia, Australia e America Latina. Da solo, in duo e con orchestra ha suonato nelle più importanti sale da concerto di tutto il mondo (Carnegie Hall di New York, Konzerthaus di Vienna, Sala delle Colonne di Kiev, Auditorio Nacional di Madrid, Tchaikovsky Hall di Mosca, Sejong Hall di Seoul, Concertgebouw di Amsterdam). Insieme a Matteo Mela, nel 2002 Lorenzo ha dato vita a “SoloDuo”, uno tra i duo di chitarre più noti al mondo, che il "Washington Post" ha definito “extraordinarily sensitive – nothing less than rapturous”.
La sua discografia annovera una ventina di titoli e comprende - tra gli altri - un disco di "Arie e Cantate" di Alessandro Scarlatti (con Massimo Lonardi, Matteo Mela e Renata Fusco), i 24 Preludi e Fughe per due chitarre e i Concerti di Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, le opere complete di Miguel Llobet, gli album “Morning in Iowa” (con David Knopfler) e “Autumn of the Soul", tre antologie di musica per duo di chitarre, una serie di monografie su Dionisio Aguado, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Antoine de Lhoyer, Andrea Falconieri, Ferdinand Rebay, Mauro Giuliani e François de Fossa (con Enrico Bronzi e Ivan Rabaglia), e un disco dedicato alle Sonate di Beethoven in un’inedita veste per due chitarre (“Beethoven for Two”, Decca). Nel 2024 ha pubblicato le “Sonate” di Domenico Scarlatti (in duo) per l’etichetta francese “Evidence”, mentre nell’autunno 2025 è prevista l’uscita di un CD con le Sonate per chitarra sola di Michael Tippett e Olli Mustonen.
Lorenzo è professore di chitarra e Responsabile della formazione alla Scuola Universitaria del Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana. Tiene regolarmente masterclasses e seminari presso importanti istituzioni (USC Los Angeles, University of Austin, Peabody Conservatory di Baltimora, Sibelius Academy Helsinki, Kunstuniversität Graz, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, San Francisco Conservatory, Shanghai Conservatory, Beijing Central Conservatory, University of Toronto, Conservatorio “G. Verdi” di Milano, Musik-Akademie di Basilea). È inoltre docente ai corsi annuali dell’Accademia internazionale di Imola, all’Accademia Strata di Pisa, e – come Artist in residence – alla University of Colorado Boulder e alla Columbus State University di Columbus, GA. Ha ideato e dirige due collane editoriali per la casa editrice canadese “Les Productions d’Oz”.
Quando non è in viaggio vive tra Milano e Valtournenche, un piccolo villaggio ai piedi del Cervino.
www.lorenzomicheli.com
Luthers and Composers, lecturers at the conferences and teachers at masterclasses
Stephen Goss
Conference, Barco Teatro, Monday 8th ,10 am – Masterclass Tuesday 9th
The participation of the Welsh guitarist and composer Stephen Goss will add an international edge and state-of-the art research to the Festival.
His music is played by the world’s major classical guitarists, who have also commissioned many works from him. These include David Russell, SoloDuo, Zoran Dukić, Aniello Desiderio, Miloš Karadaglić and Xuefei Yang (including chamber works with cellist Natalie Clein and tenor Ian Bostridge).
As a guitarist, he has worked with Takemitsu, Henze, Peter Maxwell Davies and Elliott Carter and has performed and recorded with several ensembles including the Tetra Guitar Quartet, as well as a soloist.
Recent projects have included the legendary guitarist John Williams, who recorded and toured his “Guitar Concerto” (2012) with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 2014. Some of the world’s major orchestras have performed his works.
He has released over 80 albums with more than a dozen record labels, including EMI, Decca, Telarc, Virgin Classics, Naxos and Deutsche Grammophon. His oeuvre includes large-scale orchestral compositions, choral works, chamber music and solo pieces.
Stephen Goss is currently Professor of Composition and Director of the International Guitar Research Centre at the University of Surrey, UK, and a Professor of Guitar at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 2018 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, an honour limited to 300 living people.
He was born in Wales on February 2, 1964.
Gabriele Lodi
Conference, Barco Teatro, Wednesday 10th,10 am
Gabriele Lodi's guitars are loved by leading international concert players and by young students alike.
Born in 1976, he learned the art of guitar making from the age of 13 in the workshop of his father Maurizio and uncle Leandro in Carpi. In the afternoons after school, Gabriele would learn by observing the work done by his father and uncle and he gradually grew to master the craft. At the age of 20 he was officially active full time in the F.lli Lodi workshop.
In recent years, Gabriele has worked hard to promote his work at national and international exhibitions, offering his instruments to a growing international market. Thanks to his commitment, he has developed important relationships with Japan, China, Canada, USA, Australia and Argentina.
Gabriele continues the research work he started in the family workshop on historical instruments, not only by continuing the art of restoring and recovering old guitars, but also by launching his own project to reinterpret the instrument and bring innovation, starting from the most unique and significant characteristics that have made the history of the guitar.
Gabriele has been a professor of “history and development of plucked string instruments” at the Frescobaldi Conservatory of Ferrara since 2010. He has organised exhibitions of ancient musical instruments and conferences in prestigious locations including MondoMusica in Cremona.
"The Lodi lutherie places a strong focus on the relationship with the musicians who come to our workshop. We constantly work with them to seek the truest and most practical musical meaning of the guitar today. We also believe that we need to study and understand the past so we can do our work better”.
Carlo Galante
World première Barco Teatro commission, Barco Teatro, Sunday 7th ,8 pm
Carlo Galante was born in Trento in 1959. He lives and works in Milan where he teaches composition at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi.
He writes works for the theatre and composes symphonic and chamber music performed in Italy and abroad in prestigious venues such as the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Fondazione Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Fondazione Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the RAI in Rome and Naples, the Orchestra dei Pomeriggi musicali in Milan.
His compositions are performed and recorded by leading interpreters in the international panorama of contemporary classical music.
www.carlogalante.it