Having made her solo début aged sixteen, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C major, KV 415, with the Orchestra Sinfonica del Teatro Rosetum, in Milan, the Italian pianist Francesca Leonardi has appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras both at home and abroad. She regularly appears at prestigious venues and festivals around the world, including Sala Verdi and Teatro dal Verme, in Milan, Istituzione Universitaria dei Concerti, in Rome, Royal Albert Hall, in London, Auditorium du Louvre, in Paris, Ravinia Festival, in Chicago, Teatro Colón, in Buenos Aires, Theatro Municipal, in Rio de Janeiro, National Centre for the Performing Arts, in Beijing, Oriental Art Centre, in Shanghai, and Musashino Civic Cultural Hall, in Tokyo. She is actively involved in the field of chamber music and regularly performs with the violinist Francesca Dego and with instrumentalists and singers such as Bruno Giuranna, Laura Marzadori, Sonig Tchakerian, Susanne Hou, Nigel Clayton, Jacopo Di Tonno, Martin Owen, Alfredo Zamarra, Laura Bortolotto, Andrea Cicchese, Andrea Giuffredi, and Andrea Oliva.

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 Conservatorio di Musica Giuseppe Verdi, in Milan, in 2004, with top marks, cum laude, and special mention, and continued her studies at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, in Siena, and under Nigel Clayton and Roger Vignoles, 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, generously supported by The Gordon Calway Stone Memorial Award. Her discography includes Suite italienne, a duo recording with Francesca Dego, which explores Italian repertoire from the 20th century, as well as a complete survey of the violin sonatas by Beethoven, also with Francesca Dego. She is passionate about teaching and is a professor of chamber music at the Conservatorio di Musica Giuseppe Verdi.