Biographies

Matteo Cimatti

matteocimatti.com

(This biography is authorised for use in the 2025/26 season. It should not be altered without permission. Official short, medium, and long versions are available upon request. Please contact Etta Dainty (etta@ycat.co.uk).)

Matteo Cimatti is a prize-winning Italian violinist who has been praised for his “…refined playing and melodious and intense tone…” (ANSA). Based between London and Switzerland, he has appeared alongside several European orchestras and at numerous festivals, and is also an accomplished and enthusiastic chamber player. In May 2025, he was selected as one of the winners at the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) International Final Auditions.
Matteo has appeared as a soloist with several orchestras, including the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, London Firebird Orchestra, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra Giovanile Italiana, and has performed in numerous festivals and concert seasons such as the Sion Festival, Festival dei Due Mondi, Amici della Musica di Firenze, Musica Insieme Bologna and Musikdorf Ernen, among others.

Upcoming highlights include debuts at the Alte Oper Frankfurt and Philharmonie Berlin, a
return to Wigmore Hall, as well as appearances at several festivals including the Internationales Musikfestival Heidelberger Frühling and Beethovenfest Bonn.

Matteo is a Borletti-Buitoni Trust nominee and has won numerous awards and accolades at
national and international competitions, including awards from the Fondation Leenaards, Rahn Kulturfonds, Concours d’Interprétation Musicale de Lausanne and the Premio Postacchini International Violin Competition.

An avid chamber musician since a very young age, Matteo enjoys a rich and varied concert life as a chamber player. He is a founding member of the Wendel Quartet, a piano quartet based in Basel, which was a prizewinner at the Orpheus Swiss Chamber Music Competition in November 2024 and has appeared at several festivals including Musikdorf Ernen and the
Swiss Chamber Music Festival Adelboden.

Matteo completed a Soloist Master’s Degree at the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne
(HEMU) in July 2024, where he studied with Janine Jansen and Tomo Keller. He previously
earned Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from HEMU, studying with Svetlana Makarova and
Pavel Vernikov. Matteo has also been mentored by David Takeno at the Guildhall School of
Music and Drama in London and has benefited from lessons with pedagogues such as Miriam Fried, Mihaela Martin and Gerhard Schulz.

Francesco Granata

https://davosfestival.ch/artists/francesco-granata

Francesco Granata, born in 1998, is an Italian pianist.  

Highly active both in solo and chamber music settings, his collaborations include Trio Eclipse, an ensemble based in Basel that he joined in 2024 and Wendel Quartet, of which he is a founding member. Additionally, he frequently performs duo recitals with various musical partners.

Winner of numerous piano competitions, he resulted First Prize at the “Premio Venezia” in 2017, which led to many solo recitals across Italy and abroad. Subsequently, he was a Laureate at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition (2021), won Second Prize at the Rahn Musikpreis (2024), was a Finalist at the Montreal International Piano Competition (2021), and reached the final stages of the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (2022). Since then, Francesco has performed in solo recitals and chamber music ensembles in Italy, the United States, Switzerland, France, Spain, Austria, Germany, and India, giving concerts in renowned venues such as KKL in Lucerne, the Experimental Theatre of the NCPA in Mumbai, the Opera House in Bordeaux, the Musical Arts Center in Bloomington (USA), the Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice, among others.

At the age of 13, Francesco made his debut as a soloist with orchestra and has since performed with the Luzern Sinfonieorchester, the Orchestra of Teatro La Fenice, I Pomeriggi Musicali, IU Philarmonic Orchestra, among others, working with conductors such as Tung-Chieh Chuang, Jonathan Webb, Arthur Fagen, Amedeo Monetti, Cosimo Bombardieri, Stefano Ligoratti, and Michele Spotti.
In 2018, the magazine “Suonare News” released his first CD, featuring a repertoire ranging from Mozart to Debussy. In 2015, he recorded a DVD for Limenmusic studios of Lachner’s version for piano and string quintet of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. In 2023, Italian magazine “Amadeus” published a CD featuring Martucci’s Trios recorded with the “DaVinci Ensemble.”

He has attended various masterclasses with Pavel Gililov, Robert Levin, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Alberto Nosè, Giovanni Bellucci, Scott McBride Smith, Malcolm Bilson, Rolf Plagge, and Andrea Lucchesini. In 2023, he was selected by Maria João Pires to participate in one of her “Partitura Project” workshops.

Francesco graduated at 17 from “G. Verdi” Conservatory in Milan with top marks and special mention. In 2019, he completed the MasterCourse Diploma at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome under the guidance of Benedetto Lupo, and in 2023, he obtained the Artist Diploma from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, Bloomington (USA), studying with Roberto Plano. He currently resides in Basel, where he is pursuing his second  Master in Music Pedagogy at the Musik Akademie, after having earned the Master in Performance (with a minor in Jazz) at the same school in June 2025, under the guidance of Claudio Martínez Mehner.

Please Note