Francesca Dego, violin and Francesca Leonardi, piano
In association with Italian Cultural Centre, Mumbai
In a programme of Tartini: Sonata in G minore Op. 1 No. 10 “Didone Abbandonata” (Dido the Forsaken); Berio: 2 pieces for violin and piano; Debussy: Sonata; Respighi: Sonata and Ravel: Tzigane
A keen chamber musician, Francesca Dego enjoys performing with artists including Francesco Piemontesi, Daniel Müller-Schott, Gautier Capuçon, Timothy Ridout, Jan Lisiecki, Salvatore Accardo, Alessandro Carbonare, Mahan Esfahani, Bruno Giuranna, Shlomo Mintz, Narek Hakhnazaryan, Federico Colli, Mischa Maisky, Antonio Meneses, Martin Owen, Alessandro Taverna, Enrico Dindo, Alessio Bax, Roman Simovic and Francesca Leonardi.
Francesca is signed exclusively to Chandos Records. With a growing discography, her most recent recording of the violin concertos of Busoni and Brahms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Dalia Stasevska was awarded the prestigious Franco Abbiati Prize. Other key recordings include the complete Mozart violin concertos with Sir Roger Norrington, concertos by Paganini and Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari and a complete survey of the violin sonatas by Beethoven and Paganini’s Caprices on Deutsche Grammophon.
Francesca also has a passion for contemporary music and is proud to be a dedicatee of works by Michael Nyman, Carlo Boccadoro, Nicola Campogrande, Francesco Antonioni, Silvia Colasanti, Fabio Vacchi and Giovanni Sollima, amongst others. In 2025 she created the ambitious project “Feathers in time”, which commissions ten of the most important living Italian composers to write solo violin works for her inspired by the poetry of her father, the late Italian poet Giuliano Dego.
She contributes to specialist music magazines including Suonare News and Archi, and has written articles and opinion pieces for The Strad, BBC and Classical Music Magazines, Musical Opinion, and Strings Magazine. Francesca has published her first book with Mondadori — Tra le Note. Classica: 24 chiavi di lettura — in which she explores the relevance, application, and deeper understanding of classical music in the modern day.
Pianist Francesca Leonardi made her debut for the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label with the complete recording of the Beethoven Violin Sonatas with her regular violin partner of twenty years, Francesca Dego. In October 2018 a new recording from the duo was released worldwide, a project marking a journey through 20th century music inspired by Italy and including world premiere recordings of three works by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. The following two albums “Il Cannone” and a Mozart project were released for Chandos Records and welcomed with prestigious international press articles. Her recording of the complete Busoni violin and piano repertorie was also released for Chandos in 2024 to celebrate his centenary.
Born in Milan in 1984, Francesca Leonardi began studying the piano at the age of three under the guidance of Graziella Bianchi and Paolo Bordoni. She graduated from the Milan Conservatoire in 2004 with top marks, cum laude, and special mention. She continued her studies at the Chigiana Academy in Siena and at the Royal College of Music in London where she was awarded both a Master’s in Performance and an Artist Diploma in Piano Accompaniment with Distinction in 2012, under Nigel Clayton and Roger Vignoles, and generously supported by The Gordon Calway Stone Memorial Award.
From a very early age Francesca showed enthusiasm for teaching and following this passion has become a chamber music teacher at the “G. Verdi” Conservatoire in Milan.
“Francesca Leonardi is an excellent pianist and a musician of the highest quality. – (Roger Vignoles)
