Allegro Moderato presents Paolo Restani

At sixteen Paolo Restani debuts at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. From then on, he starts a thirty-year career in the international most important musical venues. A soloist with all the main Italian orchestras, he performs Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto with the Orchestra Filarmonica del Teatro alla Scala conducted by Riccardo Muti, who directs him again in the symphonic production of Lélio ou Le retour à la vie op. 14b by Berlioz, with Gérard Depardieu (as narrator) and the Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor. The same main importance have his soloist-performances with orchestras in Europe, America and Australia.

Recitals in recent seasons include Grossen Musikvereinsaal in Vienna, Konzerthaus in Berlin, Prinzregententheatre in Munich, Rheingoldhalle in Mainz, New Congress-Hall in Innsbruck, International Performing Arts Centre in Moscow, the Great Hall of Philharmonic in St. Petersburg, Colon and Coliseo Theatres in Buenos Aires, London, Brussels, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Beirut, Santiago in Chile, Montevideo, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Teatro Comunale in Florence, Teatro Regio in Turin, Teatro la Fenice in Venice, Arena in Verona, Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Teatro Verdi in Trieste, besides all other Italian lyrical-symphonic foundations and main concert-societies.
Among the many conductors he played with, are to be pointed out Roberto Abbado, Gerd Albrecht, Piero Bellugi, Christian Benda, Yoram David, Vladimir Delman, Claus Peter Flor, Heiko Mathias Forster, Lu Jia, Lothar Koenigs, Gerard Korsten, Julian Kavatchev, Gustav Kuhn, Yoel Levi, John Nelson, John Neschling, Gunter Neuhold, Daniel Oren, Massimo Pradella, Donato Renzetti.

He is participating in prestigious festivals: Flanders, Martha Argerich in Buenos Aires, Istanbul Recitals, Al Bustan Festival in Beirut, London Hatchlands Music Festival, Ravenna, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Settembre Musica in Turin, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli in Brescia and Bergamo, Verdi in Parma, Uto Ughi per Roma, Panatenee Pompeiane, Festival Romaeuropa, Todi Arte Festival, Ravello, Ljubljana, Jornadas Internacionales de Piano in Oviedo, Asturias Festival. He was also invited by Yuri Temirkanov to XVII Christmas Musical Meetings in Palmira of the North in St. Petersburg.

His repertoire ranges from Bach to present-day composers, with a preference for the great cycles of the Romantic Period and the 19th century: complete Chopin, Skriabin, Liszt’s Etudes, the entire Brahms’s piano-works, most of the Chopin, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninov’s compositions, and the complete works for piano and orchestra by Beethoven, Field, Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns and Casella.
His collaboration with Michael Nyman led to the first Italian performance of The Piano Concerto for piano and orchestra, taken from the soundtrack of the Oscar-winning film The Piano Lesson by Jane Campion.

As co-protagonist, he attended theatrical productions accompanying artists as Carla Fracci, Sylvie Guillelme, Laurent Hilaire, Enrico Maria Salerno, Simona Marchini, Mariano Rigillo, Gottfried Wagner and, along with the actress Chiara Muti, he performed three original musical plays on the life of Mozart, on the Wagner-Ludwig II relationship and Rachmaninov-Gogol. He accompanied Monica Bacelli, Guillemette Laurens and Claire Brua in lieder cycles and is currently working with the violist Simonide Braconi and the Quartetto d’archi della Scala.

His many notable recordings appeared under the most important labels (Deutsche Grammophon, DECCA, Brilliant Classics, Amadeus, etc.).