FABIO MARTINO
LATIN AMERICA
At the age of five, Fabio Martino began playing his grandmother's piano; she was a piano teacher in São Paulo. Seventeen years later, after intense preparation at the most important music universities in Brazil and Germany, Martino was able to purchase his first Steinway Grand. The funds for this came from the First Prize that was awarded in the II Piano Contest of the BNDES Bank of Brazil, one of the most important in Latin America.
A year later, in 2011, Martino won the First Prize in the piano competition organized by the Cultural Committee of the German Industry “Sound and Explanation – transporting music in sound and word”. He not only attracts the public with his virtuosity; it also thrills them with its South American charm. Meanwhile, Fabio Martino has won more than 20 First Places in various international Competitions.
He is seen as a brash but outspoken challenger on the international pianist scene. He wears his hand-tied bow tie as his personal trademark.
Another milestone in his career was the publication of his debut album in 2013 with works by Brahms, Schumann and the world premiere of York Höller's Third Piano Sonata, as well as Edino Krieger's Three Studies. Composer Höller praised his “expressive, solid –but never overflowing-, sensitive –but never rambling-, and technically perfect interpretations”.
Regarding one of his concerts, the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper wrote: "Fabio Martino revived the Emperor Concerto in an overwhelming way, with well-constructed and melodious pleasant passages and with the necessary resistance".
Their second album, PASSION, was recorded in co-production with SWR at the famous Hans Rosbaud Studio in Baden-Baden. It includes well-known works by Beethoven, Liszt and Schumann that Fabio interprets in his very special emotional way, it also contains the world premiere of "Tico-Tico no fubá" arranged by Marc-André Hamelin, a light piece but full of temperament and of great technical difficulties.
As a soloist, Martino constantly performs around the world with a repertoire that includes Concertos by Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Schumann, Medtner, Bartók and Mozart, to name a few, accompanied by such outstanding orchestras as the São Paulo State Symphony Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro), Minas Gerais Philharmonic 8Belo Horizonte), the Badische Staatskapelle (Karlsruhe), Bavarian Broadcasting Symphony (Munich), Duisburg Philharmonic and the Berlin Symphony.
His concerts and recitals have been heard on important stages and world festivals such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Seoul Center for the Arts (South Korea), São Paulo Hall, Cecilia Meireles Hall of the City of Arts in Rio de Janeiro; the Miami International Piano Festival and the Gilmore Festival in the United States; Spring in Heidelberg, the NDR Radio in Hannover and the Gasteig in Munich, in Germany.
His charismatic personality has been the subject of various television programs and live broadcasts for networks such as SWR, BR, NDR and the BBC.
At the end of 2015, Martino received two significant awards: the “Discovery of the Year” Critics Award for his performance of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody of Paganini with the São Paulo State Symphony conducted by Marin Alsop at the São Paulo Hall; as well as the Audience Award for “Young Talents”.
Specialized critics equate Fabio Martino's young career with that of great virtuosos such as Nelson Freire, Alicia de Larrocha, Martha Argerich and Vladimir Ashkenazy.
