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THE PRESS SAYS:

“One of today’s leading keyboard players‘ (Musicweb-international) “A phenomenal harpsichordist and world star” (Arvika Nyheter) “Absolute gem of a harpsichordist”; “it’s not very often that a harpsichordist grabs my attention to such an extent that I pick up the booklet again just to see who this astonishing musician is and what background he or she has, but that was my reaction to the extraordinary Anna Paradiso” (Fanfare, USA) “she carries out an authentic baroque phrasing, making of every musical gesture a world in itself … she uses a fantastic rubato” (El Arte de la Fuga, Spain) “This is keyboard musicianship so superlative that I stopped the player after 20 minutes and immediately placed an order for the other volume. It’s that attractive and expressive” (American Record Guide) “Gorgeous continuo-playing” (Klassik Heute), “Masterly use of the clavichord” (Uppsala Nya Tidningar) “The final of Bach’s F major harpsichord concert (is) more scintillating than ever” (Gramophone UK).”She was an happening in herself. With her body language that gave life to the music, she was the great memorable part of the concert” (Katrineholms Kuriren, Sweden)“She impressed us with her formal perfection and dynamic empathy” (Norrköping Tidn., Sweden)

RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS

2022: two nominations for the International Classical Music Award (ICMA); 2021: 3 years grant for Swedish repertoire with historical keyboards by the Swedish Research Council; 2020: Swedish Awards best classical recording (Swedish GRAMMY) / on Opuslistan (the 20 more significant people within the musical field in Sweden according to Opusmagasin)- 2019: awarded with the Bernadotte Sholarship from the Swedish Royal Academy of Music  

Sweden-based Anna Paradiso (also known as Anna Paradiso Laurin) was born in Bari, South of Italy, and received a university education equally oriented towards music and humanities. After some years of intense research and teaching as a PhD doctor in classical philology at institutions such as Oxford University, Stockholm University, University of Freiburg, etc., she eventually embarked on an international concert activity in 2008. The international critics quickly noticed her and described her as a harpsichordist of great individuality and character. Anna moved to Sweden in 2006 to follow her Swedish husband, recorder-player Dan Laurin. She is recognized today as one of the most prominent musicians and teacher in her adoptive country, as well as internationally praised. She has performed  in many prestigious venues and festivals in Scandinavia as well as in England, Germany, France, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Poland, Greece, the USA, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Lebanon. During the past years she has moreover developed a strong passion in performing on Swedish clavichord and fortepiano. She is also an accomplished modern pianist and baroque organ player.

EDUCATION

Anna studied at the conservatory in Bari, where she gained a Solo Diploma in piano with full marks and cum laude in 1998, under the guidance of Angela Annese, Emanuele Arciuli and Pasquale Iannone. While studying harpsichord at the conservatory in Bari and after gaining a Solo Diploma with full marks in 2002, she took lessons with the late Gordon Murray, professor at the conservatory in Vienna. During 1996-1997, Anna attended a course in musical journalism and criticism at the Scuola Holden of writer Alessandro Baricco in Turin. In 2001, Anna received a Master Degree in humanities, with a specialization in classical philology  from Università degli Studi di Bari. Soon after, she was awarded by the same university full grants for a PhD in Greek and Latin philology, which she completed in 2005.
Further studies in harpsichord included lessons in Paris with Christophe Rousset, with focus on 17th and 18th cent. French music, and a period of study for a second Master in harpsichord spent with Enrico Baiano at the conservatory of Avellino in Italy, where she focused on 17th cent. Italian music. Anna completed her second MA in harpsichord and basso continuo at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm with Mayumi Kamata. Last but not least, her encounter with Dan Laurin contributed to Anna’s musical inspiration, and created a cooperation that has brought praises from the international critics.
Anna’s philological study of original sources on baroque performance practice and thorough-bass has been a decisive moment in her development as a musician. The critics have acknowledged her personal style in her playing, with enthusiastic praises (see the link to the recordings).

CONCERTS

As a soloist and continuo player, Anna Paradiso has appeared with the major Scandinavian ensembles and orchestras (Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble, Copenhagen Soloists, Rebaroque, Drottnigholm Theatre Orchestra, Stockholm Symphony Orchestra, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Norrbotten NEO, Höör Barock, Baroque Academy Gothenburg Symphony, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, 1B1, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Norrbotten Chamber Music Orchestra, etc.). Both as soloist and continuo-player, she has also performed, among others, with Philarmonia Moment Musical (Taipei), Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Birmingham Conservatory Orchestra, Radovlijca Festival ensemble. Her repertoire as soloist with orchestra spams from baroque to modern harpsichord concertos and to contemporary works.

RECORDINGS & AWARDS

Anna is featured as one of the main performers, or the only performer, in 17 recordings with the international label BIS.  Her two solo-recordings of the keyboard sonatas by the Swedish baroque composer Johan Helmich Roman have received enthusiastic praises by the international critics (vol. 2 was also awarded the American Record Guide Critics Choice 2016). Her 2020 solo-recording of Pietro Domenico Paradisi’s sonatas received raving reviews and many recommendations, including Gramophone’s Editor Choice of the month. It also obtained for Anna a place on the prestigious Opuslistan 2020, which selects the 20 most significant people working in the Swedish musical world according to  Opusmagasin. She has also been internationally praised for her clavichord and fortepiano performances contained in 5 of her recordings (with 2 more to be released in 2024). Moreover, as a soloist, she has obtained critical acclaim recording the virtuosic harpsichord concerto by Bach BWV 1057, a contemporary harpsichord concerto by Vito Palumbo with Gävle Symphony Orchestra and, for Barn Cottage Records, a recital with a repertoire that spans from Frescobaldi to a modern concerto by Walter Leigh. With recorder-player Dan Laurin, she has formed a duo that tours internationally and which has recorded several CDs for BIS inviting different musicians to join. Moreover, in the internationally acclaimed first complete recording of JH Roman’s Golovin Suite,  Anna, which features as continuo-player and Dan Laurin, musical and artistic director, invited to join the period orchestra Höör Barock. This recording was awarded a Swedish Grammy in 2020. For BIS and with Dan Laurin, she has also successfully recorded all flute sonatas by Roman, 20th-century English sonatas with harpsichord and piano, French baroque chamber music, orchestral music by Vivaldi, Corelli and Telemann. Together with Paradiso Musicale, a baroque ensemble co-funded by Anna, she made an acclaimed début recording featuring music by Telemann, J. S. and C. P. E. Bach, which was ‘Record of the Month’ on BBC Music Magazine. For the label arcantus she joined recorder player Clara Guldberg Ravn in recording the flute sonatas by the Danish composer Morten Ræs, playing continuo on harpsichord, fortepiano and clavichord. Both recordings have received international praises. Anna has two nominations for ICMA 2022, both for one of the Morten Rahes recordings and for the recent BIS production with Telemann’s recorder sonatas with Dan Laurin and Mats Olofsson (see the reviews under “Recordings”). In the most recent recording for BIS  with unknown Neapolitan baroque music  (November 2022) Anna is artistic director, soloist and continuo-player together with Dan Laurin, the ensemble Dolci Affetti funded by Anna and the raising star sopranist Nicolò Balducci, with whom a second recording will be released in 2023,  featuring the baroque ensemble BAGS and Dan Laurin as conductor. In 2024 there will be out two recordings for BIS- Apple Music: a recording on original fortepiano with unknown Swedish music for which Anna invited to join the international mezzo-soprano Kristina Hammarström, and a duo-performance with sopranist Nicolò Balducci, with music by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven on two original fortepianos from Anna’s collection.

CONTEMPORARY MUSIC 

During 2022, Anna has extensively toured with Ensemble Suecia, with a musical and literary performance created by composer and writer Carin Bartosch Edström. Anna has also commissioned several works, for instance from the acclaimed Italian composer Vito Palumbo, whose work Nostos, written for her, was performed by Anna in a solo-tour with the ensemble Norrbotten NEO in 2014. Composers such as Daniel Börtz, Fredrick Österling, Ingvar Karkoff, Christofer Elgh and Kjell Meijering have also written for Anna and / or for her duo with Dan Laurin. She has also performed with the jazz-trio Trio-X of Sweden and with her Estonian-Swedish cross-over group The Bright Future Ensemble with music written for the ensemble by Helena Tulve and Britta Byström.

ACADEMIC JOBS

During 2023-2024, Anna is harpsichord teacher at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. She is also employed at the same conservatory as artistic researcher in the field of Swedish historical keyboards. Previously, she has held appointments as harpsichord teacher at the music conservatory in Trento and, from 2021 to 2023, as main harpsichord professor at the conservatory “E. Duni” in  Matera, Italy. Anna has been invited as harpsichord teacher in master-classes at the conservatoires of Bolzano, Avellino, Salerno, at Trinity College in London, at Birmingham Conservatoire, Grieg Academy in Bergen, the national conservatory of Beirut, at the Chinese University in Hong Kong, as well as in several international baroque courses in Europe, Japan, Lebanon, Hong-Kong and Taiwan. She has also given lectures and work-shops around the world on the connections between classical rhetorics and baroque music, improvisation and ornamentation.

RESEARCH & SCHOLARSHIPS 

Anna’s current artistic research on unknown Swedish keyboard repertoire between 1770-1860 has won a national selection for funds from the Swedish Research Council. Within this project, Anna organizes as project-leader, performer and lecturer, concerts and international conferences  in cooperation with some major festivals and institutions in Sweden. In 2019, the Royal Academy of Music of Sweden awarded her with a post-doctoral ‘Bernadotte Programme’ scholarship handed by the king of Sweden, for  a project on the connections between 18th century Neapolitan music and the rhetorical, poetical and philosophical movements in 18th century Naples.

Anna has been awarded many other important scholarships as a musician, such as those from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee and the Swedish Arts Council. Before 2008, when she decided to dedicate her life completely to music, Anna has had an international career as PhD doctor in classical philology, teaching and researching at Oxford University, at the Royal College of Technology in Stockholm, at the University of Bari, of   Freiburg and at Stockholm University.

MUSICIANS

Among the prominent musicians Anna has performed with, there are: Dan Laurin, Hidemi Suzuki,  Nils-Erik Sparf, Elin Rombo, Stefan Temmingh, Kristina Hammarström, Mario Caroli, Lena-Susanne Norin, Lorenzo Cavasanti, Jan Björanger, Mikhail Simonyan, Arureliusz Golinski, Francesco D’Orazio, Domen Marincic. Together with symphony orchestras, she performed with Lisa Batiashvili, François Leleux, Lara St John, Jaime Martin, and many more.

INSTRUMENTARIUM  

Neapolitan harpsichord by Masao Kimura (Zao 2012) after Onofrio Guarracino (c. 1650); French harpsichord by Francois Paul Ciocca (Riccia 2008) after Nicolas & Francois Blanchet (1730); original Swedish square piano by Mathias Petter Kraft (Stockholm 1797); original Swedish clavichord by Pehr Lindholm (Stockholm 1794); original grand-piano John Broadwood (London, 1802); original square-piano Fredericus Baeck (London 1780); original grand-piano Pehr Rosewall (Stockholm 1838): up-right piano Erard (1858).

All original instruments are restored by Dan Johansson: https://www.tidigaklaver.se/?page_id=67