BIOGRAPHY
Born in 1984, he is a pianist, harpsichordist, and musicologist.
Gaggini began his musical studies at the Conservatorio “G. Cantelli” in Novara, where he obtained a degree in piano with the highest honors in 2004. He improved himself with Gloria Gili and Pier Narciso Masi in piano and chamber music.
Since 2007 he plays in a piano duo together with Matteo Fossi, with whom he started a research work on the repertoire for two pianos, especially focused on many important nineteenth and twentieth century transcriptions. The duo has played in important festivals in Italy (Auditorium of Milan, I Concerti del Quirinale in Rome, W. Walton Foundation in Ischia), South-Korea (Seoul, 2007), France (Paris, 2009), Poland (Warsaw, 2010) and Austria (Wien, 2013 e 2014). In 2010, the Universal label produced the first complete recording of the two pianos’ versions of Brahms’ symphonies, which received enthusiastic reviews by many important music magazines. In 2014-2016 Brilliant Classics released the duo’s recording of the complete works for two pianos by Bartók, Ligeti, Schoenberg and Poulenc.
He also plays with the ContempoArtEnsemble, taking part in many premieres and recordings of contemporary music.
He began studying harpsichord with Danilo Costantini at the Conservatorio “G. Verdi” in Milan, where he obtained a harpsichord degree with the highest honors in 2009. His work with the French harpsichordist and conductor Christophe Rousset, with whom he improved himself in Paris, was essential to his development as a harpsichordist. In May 2008 Marco Gaggini won the First Prize (soloist section) and the special prize “Domenico da Pesaro” for the best performance of a seventeenth century work at the XI Harpsichord National Competition “Gianni Gambi” in Pesaro. In 2013 he won the Second Prize at the VI European Harpsichord Competition “Paola Bernardi” in Bologna.
From 2016 he plays in duo together with the harpsichordist Gian Luca Rovelli, with the aim of rediscover the repertoire for two harpsichords. In 2019 Brilliant Classics released the first recording of the duo devoted to the complete published Trios by François Couperin.
He completed his musical studies with a degree in musicology from the University of Cremona with a thesis on the two-pianos versions of the four symphonies by Johannes Brahms, followed by a masters degree received with honors from the University of Florence with a thesis on the French pianist and composer Raoul Pugno.
In 2021 he published the essay "L’opera per tastiera di Johann Sebastian Bach nel percorso di studi pianistici: riflessioni su prassi esecutiva e ruolo delle fonti" in the collective work "Dalla Storia alla Musica: percorsi di didattica musicale con le fonti storiche" (edited by G. Carugno, PM edizioni). An enthusiastic lecturer, he gives often seminars and workshop on music history, aesthetics and analysis.
Marco Gaggini teaches piano and harpsichord at the Centro Studi Musica & Arte and at the Accademia Musicale of Florence. He regularly collaborates with Dulcimer Fondation pour la Musique.
From 2021 he teaches leading piano at the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali “Rinaldo Franci” of Siena and bibliographic research methods in the Bachelor course at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole.
He records for Fenice DM, Universal, Decca and Brilliant Classics.