Giulio De Luca is an Italian pianist. Born in Naples, he lived and studied there until he moved to Rome, his adopted city. From his youngest years he has showed a spontaneous and overwhelming passion for music. At the age of seven he decided to study the piano, showing immediately such an ease for learning it his teacher remained greatly impressed. After his debut at only 9, when he was thirteen he decided to start studying the piano professionally, first privately and then in the Conservatory, with Massimo Bertucci, a direct follower of the prestigious school of Vincenzo Vitale. At the same time, so as to complete his musical training, he followed also the course in Composition under the guidance of Bruno Mazzotta, former Director of the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella, an extraordinary figure of musician who would have a strong impact on his training as an artist and professional ethics.
During the Conservatory years he experienced :important events as he was sent to participate in national piano competitions (the "Ennio Porrino" in Cagliari and the "City of Messina") always classifying himself among the first competitors and was chosen to represent his Conservatory in concerts in Italy. He finally graduated in the piano course with the highest honours, also winning the "Paolella Scholarship". Insofar as the best graduate of that year, that Award granted him participation in the Piano Marathon broadcast from Auditorium of the Turin Polytechnic by the Italian Radio Network.
Still as a young student, he won an audition at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples and began working as co-repetiteur for ballets and operas, and qualified as the Orchestra pianist. In those years he also performed three times as soloist with the Orchestra of the “San Carlo Theatre” within the theatre seasons performing, for instance Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on themes of Paganini, the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Francis Poulenc and Luciano Berio’s Symphony (1968).
The years spent working in the theatre are marked by the interaction and collaboration with the greatest music personages: conductors such as Pierluigi Urbini, Marko Letonja, Daniel Oren, Gabriele Ferro, stage directors (Roberto De Simone, Giancarlo Cobelli), singers (Cecilia Bartoli, Daniela Mazzucato Bruno De Simone, Luca Canonici), as well as dancers (Carla Fracci, Vladimir Vassilev, Ekaterina Maximova, Massimo Muru). Very special is his collaboration with the sopranist and actor Michael Aspinall, who for a number of years asked him to participate in his concerts where this extraordinary character used to send off the great ‘primadonnas’ from the past. Performances that took place in many Italian and foreign theatres (Teatro Mercadante in Naples, Teatro Ghione in Rome, then in Turin, the Aix-en-Provence Festival and others).
After taking his piano Diploma, he assiduously took post-graduate courses offered by the Russian pianist Konstantin Bogino, follower of the great school of Heinrich Neuhaus. The courses were held at the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Portogruaro (Venice) also included an important summer festival of chamber music with hundreds of students from all over the world. Also on this occasion he was selected to take part in laboratory-concerts with great musicians, for which it was often necessary to study and perform music studied in a few days, in front of a demanding and highly selected audience.
His concert career itself is divided at the same time and in equal measure, between solo recitals and chamber concerts, for which he played with instrumentalists and singers. His repertoire as a soloist is very eclectic, with a particular penchant for the great composers of the European Romanticism: Schumann, Brahms and especially Franz Liszt, on whom he can be considered a real expert: his deep research into the world of Liszt’s paraphrases drawn on the operas of Verdi, Rossini, Gounod, Wagner, has always been appreciated by the audience of Italian and European theatres. Besides those, he held a number of recitals, among which one can quote those in the Split National Theatre (Croatia) and in the Doge's Palace in Dubrovnik (Croatia) on the occasion of Verdi’s centennial, in the Teatro Stabile of Potenza, and those where he performed transcriptions from operas and lieder. One can also remember the recital, with a programme featuring transcriptions from Rossini’s works for the Association Scarlatti at Villa Pignatelli (Naples) and the one for the centennials of Chopin and Schumann held in Rome (Teatro Keiros) and Salerno (Week of Arts 2010), and finally the recital held at the auditorium of Villa Rufolo in Ravello. In November 2014 he performed, at the “Santa Caterina da Siena” Church in Naples, during the Festival “Fashionairies Art Lyrical”,the Bach Concertos for two keyboards and strings, playing in duo with pianist Vincenzo Marrone D’Alberti.
In May 2019 he held a recital with music of Schubert and Liszt in Edsberg Manor, Stockholm
The concerts of chamber music originate from affinities and mutual musical interests with musicians of his same age with whom he shares a passion to make music together, to explore both classic and unusual repertoires. In this respect can be cited the Quartet "Aurora ensemble" of Trieste with whom he performed - among many other places - in Vienna (Altes Rathaus and the Italian Cultural Institute), Lodi (City Theatre), Trieste (Museum Revoltella ), Rome (Palazzo Barberini), Milan (Press Club); can also be quoted the violinists Massimo Coco (Genoa, Villa Spinola, and Potenza, Auditorium), Valentina Nicolai (Rome, Bibli Bookshop), Riccardo Bonaccini (Rome, Church of the Portuguese, Power, Auditorium, Naples, FMNapolitano Foundation; Ostia Antica, Ancient Bishopric; Vaglio, archeological sites), the violist Gianluca Saggini (Salerno, Pinacoteca di Palazzo Pinto), cellist Christoph Henkel (Aversa, Bishop's Palace) and Valeria Carnicelli (Naples, Artistic Circle, Cosenza,Provincial Museum), the trio with clarinettist Calogero Palermo and cellist Andrea Bergamelli (Rome, Palazzo Ruspoli, recorded for and broadcast by the Vatican Radio).
Significant collaborations with singers are the one with Maurizio Leoni (baritone) and especially with the mezzo-soprano Chiarastella Onorati, with whom he has shared an artistic collaboration for over ten years and which has led them to study and perform a wide repertoire of chamber, Italian and foreign music, so that they can now be considered among the most authoritative Italian specialists. Their performances of lieder by Brahms, Schubert, Mahler, Strauss, Liszt, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky with lyrics by Fauré, Debussy, Poulenc (all strictly in their original language), and "La canzone dei ricordi" by Giuseppe Martucci have always kindled great interest and enthusiastic approval. Last year, for Tactus Records they realized the album "Liszt: Italy, Love’s dream" featuring the entirety of the lyrics in Italian or Hungarian, which the composer dedicated to Italy; the disc, made possible thanks to the invaluable friendship and support of Nicola Bulgari has been reviewed several times and included in the classic music programmes broadcast by RAI .
In June, 2018, he has played , together with soprano Valeria Sepe, in a concert organized by Italian Embassy in Panama for the Celebration of Italian Republic.
It is also worth mentioning the "Formaldeide" album (2007) with music for a chamber ensemble, by the Roman composer Vincenzo Ramaglia (first world recording)
Again for Tactus Records, Giulio De Luca has just recorded the whole of Liszt’s Paraphrases of Giuseppe Verdi’s operas, to be published in March 2013 on the occasion of the bicentennial of the birth of great Italian composer. The recording has been made on an ancient and precious Steinway piano of the late nineteenth century.
Giulio De Luca is also a highly regarded teacher: at first he taught chamber music and then - after passing national exams for tenured professorship - Piano in the Conservatory in Cosenza, Trapani, Potenza, Latina and, currently, Salerno. He has given masterclasses in International Summer Courses in Lucca (Italy, 2004-2006), Teatro Municipal in Santa Fè (2013) and Conservatorio Superior “M. De Falla” in Buenos Aires (Argentina, 2014). England (Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London), China (Beijing, Taiyuan, Nanning, Daqing, Benxi, Shenyang), Panama city (University), in Dresden, April 2017, at Hochschule “Carl Maria von Weber, and Stockholm, May 2018 and 2019, for Royal College of Music. He also carries out tutoring in Beijing for Chinese students wishing to be admitted to Italian conservatories.
In November 2019 he held a concert and masterclass in Mexico City
Many of his students have undertaken a career as pianists and have been winners of national piano competitions. Two of them are currently Professors in Italian Conservatoires.