Gabriele Ruggeri was born in Messina in 1994. Fascinated by the world of music thanks to his mother’s piano activity, he started studying music at an early age.
Gabriele Ruggeri
He graduated in percussion instruments at the Conservatorio ‘A. Corelli’ in Messina with top marks and, driven by a great desire to discover and get to know the innovations surrounding the ever evolving world of percussion instruments, he travelled around Europe participating in various seminars and advanced courses on the solo and chamber music repertoire with the most important figures on the percussion scene (Theodor Milkov, Simone Rubino, Evelyn Glennie, Leigh Howard Stevens, Emmanuel Sejourne, Nancy Zeltsman, Pedro Carneiro, Ruud Wiener, Edoardo Giachino, Filippo Lattanzi, Roland Denes, Benny Greb, Trilok Gurtu, Jojo Mayer, Chris Coleman, Dominique Vleeshouwers, Henrik Knarborg Larsen, Rachel Xi Zhang).
He continued his studies first in Germany, obtaining the ‘Master Soloist’ at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, under the guidance of Peter Prommel and Fumito Nunoya, and later with the ‘Master in Interpretation of Contemporary Music’ at the Conservatorio ‘S.Cecilia’ in Rome, with Maestro Antonio Caggiano. He is a member of various chamber music groups and percussion ensembles and loves to dedicate himself to research and study of classical and contemporary literature for the enhancement of the original repertoire.
Gabriele has played at several international institutions and festivals, including: the ‘Weill Hall’ of Carnegie Hall in New York (USA), the ‘Davis Performance Hall’ of Radford University in Virginia (USA), the ‘Blue Candlelight Music Series’ in Dallas (USA), the Adams Music Centre Auditorium in Ittervoort (Holland) for the ‘International Percussion Festival’, the archaeological area of Selinunte (TP) for the ‘1000 Beats’ festival, the ‘Annibale di Francia’ Theatre and the ‘Sala Laudamo’ for the ‘Accademia Filarmonica di Messina’, the ‘Palasport’ of Ruvo di Puglia (BA) for the ‘Talos Festival’, the ‘Escuola Municipal de Estrella’ (Spain), the ‘Fernando Remacha’ Auditorium in Navarra (Spain), the ‘Brahms Saal’ in Detmold (Germany), the ‘Auditorium di Campobasso’ for the ‘Percussion Festival the ‘Concert Hall’ of the Royal Academy of Music Aarhus (Denmark) for the ‘Nordic Percussion Festival’, the Evangelische Stiftung Kirche in Bielefeld (Germany) for the ‘Frakzionen Festival’, the Teatro Massimo ‘Vittorio Emanuele’ in Palermo and the Konzerthaus in Dortmund (Germany).
He has collaborated as a percussionist in the orchestra for prestigious productions with the Orchestra del Teatro Vittorio Emanuele in Messina, the Detmolder Kammerorchester, and the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie in Herford. He is a founding member, together with the Japanese Rika Ikeuchi, of the percussion ensemble ‘Hisho Percussion’, with which he has performed in many concerts (in Europe and the United States), managing to enchant audiences with music ranging from contemporary original pieces to transcriptions of music from Baroque to Romanticism and Impressionism.
He has received many national and international awards, including the ‘Premio Nazionale delle Arti 2016’ at the ‘Santa Cecilia’ Conservatory in Rome, the ‘Interpretationswettbewerb 2019’ in Germany, and the ‘Ibla Grand Prize’ international competition in Ragusa.