Roberto Plano, Italy, First Prize, 2001

A native of Varese, Italy, Roberto Plano is currently studying at the Ecole Normale “Cortot” in Paris with Nelson Delle Vigne. In 1998 he received the Experimental Piano Certificate for Concert Artists at the Conservatory “G.Verdi” in Milan, with honours, under the direction of Chiaralberta Pastorelli. He subsequently studied with Eli Perrotta, Walter Krafft, Lazar Berman, and Bruno Canino.

He is a laureate of the Jose Iturbi International Piano Competition in Valencia Spain (2000), of the Sendai International Piano Competition in Japan (2001) and a Finalist of the Busoni Competition. He has also won prizes at 15 national and international competitions in Italy, including the “Premio Venezia,” City of Treviso, “Premio Scriabin,” International Piano Competition of Stresa, International Piano Competition of Trani, and the International Piano Competition for Piano and Orchestra of Cantu.

Mr. Plano has performed at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York City, at the Sala Verdi in Milano, and in the cities of Varese,Stresa, Bologna, Torino, Venezia, Padova, Treviso, Mantova, Brescia, Catania, and Messina in Italy, as well as Paris (Salle Cortot), Munich (Herculessaal and Gasteig, Hamburg, Innsbruck, and Bratislava. In addition to his prize winning performance with the Cleveland Competition Orchestra, under the direction of Jahja Ling in Severance Hall, Mr. Plano has performed with many Italian orchestras, such as “I Pomeriggi Musicali”, the “Piccola Sinfonica” (Milan), the “Orchestra Stabile Donizetti” (Bergamo), and abroad with the Valencia Symphonic Orchestra (Spain),the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra (Japan), the Marienbad Symphonic Orchestra (Czech Republic) and the Symphonic Orchestras of Targu Mures, Oradea, Craiova and Sibiu (Rumania), with conductors Enrique Garcia Assenso, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Toschiaki Umeda, Donato Renzetti, and Gary Sheldon, among others.

Engagements for the 2002-2003 season included performances in Poland (Chopin Festival), France, Italy, Puerto Rico, and the United States

He has recorded a compact disc with the music of Chopin, Liszt, and Scriabin on the “Sipario Dischi” label in Italy. In 2002, he also made a recording of the music of Franz Liszt on the Azica label. Mr. Plano has also made guest appearances on a number of radio stations, including NPR’s “Performance Today” in Washington D.C., WNYC in New York City, and WGBH’s “Classic’s in the morning” in Boston has conducted many master classes in the United States as well as Europe.