Andrea Cicalese
“A musical maturity that some never achieve even after decades” Süddeutsche Zeitung
Italian violinist Andrea Cicalese captivates audiences with a warm, nuanced tone and a style of interpretation marked by great emotional intensity. His playing combines virtuosic mastery with natural, song-like phrasing.
As a soloist, Cicalese has performed with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, the Brussels Philharmonic, the NDR Radio Philharmonic, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Philharmonia, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestra of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz. In these performances, he has collaborated with conductors such as Hannu Lintu, JoAnn Falletta, Jörg Widmann, Oscar Jockel, Robert Kružík, Heiko-Matthias Förster, and Jaume Santonja.
His performances have taken him to venues including the Berlin Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Isarphilharmonie and the Prinzregententheater in Munich, as well as the Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo. Among his most recent highlights are two notable debuts: with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, he performed Glazunov’s Violin Concerto under Hannu Lintu; and with the Brussels Philharmonic, he performed Beethoven’s Triple Concerto at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg under Oscar Jockel.
Cicalese celebrated a notable success in September 2026 with his debut at the Stresa Festival, where he performed Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the Prague Philharmonia under Robert Kružík. “Il Corriere Musicale” praised the “admirable naturalness” of his playing; “Connessi all’Opera” highlighted his interpretive sensitivity and lyrical expression.
Chamber music also holds a firm place in Cicalese’s artistic oeuvre. His collaborators include Beatrice Rana, Alexander Malofeev, Eric Lu, Yekwon Sunwoo, Filippo Gorini, Julien Quentin, and Jan Vogler. He has made guest appearances at the Rheingau Music Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Moritzburg Festival, the Dvořák Prague International Music Festival, the Ravello Festival, and the Al Bustan Festival, among others, as well as regularly at Classiche Forme, the international chamber music festival in Lecce founded and directed by Beatrice Rana.
In addition to his concert career, Andrea Cicalese is involved in charity concerts to support music education, including at a Munich middle school. The project, initiated by the TIM Foundation, combined a school concert with personal discussions about life skills, integration, and the courage to forge one’s own path. For Cicalese, direct interaction with young people is an essential part of his artistic identity: Through music, he hopes to encourage them to develop their own means of expression.
In the 2026–27 season, Cicalese will continue his collaboration with Hannu Lintu and will perform with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, among others. Other stops include the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and Usher Hall in Edinburgh. He will also make his debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and open the season in Baden-Baden.
Andrea Cicalese was born in Naples in 2005. He is studying with Josef Rissin at the Karlsruhe University of Music and will continue his studies with Radu Blidar at the Royal College of Music in London beginning in the fall of 2026.
Andrea Cicalese plays a 1731 Guarneri “del Gesù,” which is provided to him by Music Masterpieces SA in Lugano as part of the philanthropic initiative “Adopt a Musician.”
