Francesca K.

Piano

“…delicacy, power and virtuosic agility…”

La Voce di New York, Michele Valli Perini 2024

The Italian- Egyptian pianist Francesca K. is the winner of the Ferrara International Piano Festival 2014, awarded by renowned pianist and musicologist Paul Badura-Skoda. Highlights of recent seasons include concerts as soloist with the Cairo Symphony Orchestra in Egypt, the Orchestra Filarmonica Pozzoli in Italy, appearances at Steinway Hall New York City, Cairo Opera House and Harbin Concert Hall in China.

The Italian pianist has been a guest artist for master classes and lectures at prestigious institutions, among others the ESMAR (Escuela Superior de Musica de Alto Rendimento) in Valencia, the Center for the Beethoven Studies at the University of San Jose (CA) and the E. Said Conservatory in Jerusalem, Payap University (Chiang Mai), IRMTNZ in Christchurch.

As soloist, Francesca collaborated with the Orchestra Filarmonica Ettore Pozzoli, the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, the Guido d’Arezzo Symphony Orchestra, the Oosterkerk Festival Chamber Orchestra and with soloists from the MET Opera Orchestra in the realization of the chamber version of Mozart piano concertos K 414 and 415.

Recipient of the City Artist Corps Grant 2021, and top prize winner at dozens of international competitions including the Schio International Piano Competition of the Alink-Argerich Foundation, Francesca’s mentors are the late Cuban pianist and pedagogue German Diez and pianist Ena Bronstein-Barton, both former pupils of the great pianist Claudio Arrau. Francesca’s research on German Diez is at the base of a documentary Piano Lessons, which received the official endorsement of the American Liszt Society and is deposited at the Library of Congress. The movie was selected for several film festivals (among them the 39th Torino International Film Festival) and screened in Universities and Schools across the globe. The documentary is currently available on Amazon Prime.

Francesca is currently working on completing her first book which explores the extent and relevance of the teaching legacy of Claudio Arrau in the modern music panorama through interviews with musicians who formed with the Master or his pupils (among them pianists Garrick Ohlsson, Erika Nickrenz, Joan Tower, Bennett Lerner and others). The book is planned to be published by Cultural Bridge Label in 2027.

Her award winning first album Elevation (Silver medal Global Music Award), which was released for Sheva Label and distributed by Naxos US, is available on all major streaming platforms.

The pianist is co-founder and Artistic Director of a series of initiatives (extensityconcertseries.com, hiddentreasuremusic.com), whose mission is to contribute to the disruption of gender, racial and cultural inequity in the classical music world.

She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her two cats Ivan and June.