Francesca Dego
Violinist Francesca Dego has been identified with extreme virtuoso repertory, but after signing with the Deutsche Grammophon label, she has also gained attention for a survey of Beethoven's sonatas for violin and piano. Dego is one of the few violinists who has been allowed to play "Il Cannone," Paganini's favorite violin, which is owned by the city of Genoa.
Dego was born in Lecco, Italy, on March 17, 1989. Her father, Giuliano Dego, was an Italian journalist and amateur violinist, and her mother, Margaret Straus, was an American of Jewish background; her training encompassed both Italian and American elements. Dego took up the violin, studying with her father, at age four. By the next year, she had already won admittance to California's Fairbanks School of Performing Arts. Dego made her debut at seven in San Diego with an all-Bach concert. At nine, she met violinist Daniele Gay, who became her primary teacher. After graduating from the Milan Conservatory in 2006, she moved to the Royal College of Music in London for a master's degree, which she received in 2010. Dego's style has also been shaped by instruction from Salvatore Accardo and Shlomo Mintz. An early recording of Dego playing Beethoven was used in the 2004 film The Gerson Miracle, which won the Palme d'Or at the Beverly Hills Film Festival that year. Signed to Deutsche Grammophon in 2012, Dego released a recording of the 24 Caprices of Paganini, a composer in whose work she has specialized.
Dego gave a concert with Mintz and the Israel Sinfonietta at 16, and since then, she has collaborated with the likes of Roger Norrington, Christopher Hogwood, and Xian Zhang, among others. In 2014, Dego participated in a "Violinists of Hope" concert in Rome together with 12 violinists and one cellist survivor of the Holocaust; the concert was broadcast on Italy's national RAI network. The winner of a range of international prizes, in 2008, Dego became the first Italian woman since 1961 to make the final round in the Paganini Prize competition in Genoa. In 2015, Dego married conductor Daniele Rustioni. Dego co-founded the Gravedona Chamber Music Festival on Italy's Lake Como in 2018.
In the mid-2010s, she embarked on a cycle of Beethoven violin sonatas, issued as a box set by Deutsche Grammophon in 2019. In 2017, Dego released her concerto debut, featuring the Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 6, of Paganini, and the relatively neglected Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 26 (1943), of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari. The conductor was Rustioni, leading the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. She has since released Suite Italienne (2018), an exploration of 20th century Italian styles in the music of Italy and beyond, and in 2021, she returned with Il Cannone, playing a favored violin of Paganini that has been owned since his death by the city of Genoa and has rarely been allowed to be played. Dego turned to Mozart in the early 2020s, releasing albums of his violin sonatas, violin concertos, and piano quartets on Chandos with various chamber music partners. In 2024, she returned on Chandos with a recording of the violin concertos of Brahms and Busoni, joining the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Dalia Stasevska.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Discography
20 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Mozart: The Piano Quartets
Federico Colli, Francesca Dego, Timothy Ridout, Laura van der Heijden
Chamber Music - Released by Chandos on Aug 11, 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms & Busoni Violin Concertos
Francesca Dego, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dalia Stasevska
Symphonies - Released by Chandos on Mar 1, 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 3 & 4
Francesca Dego, Roger Norrington, The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Francesca Leonardi
Concertos - Released by Chandos on Sep 3, 2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Violin Concertos, Vol. 2
Francesca Dego, The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Roger Norrington
Concertos - Released by Chandos on Sep 2, 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Francesca Dego Plays Paganini's Violin
Francesca Dego, Francesca Leonardi
Chamber Music - Released by Chandos on Feb 26, 2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Violin Concertos
Francesca Dego, City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Daniele Rustioni
Classical - Released by Universal Music Italia srL. on Oct 27, 2017
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Violin Sonatas KV. 301, KV. 303, KV. 305, KV. 454
Francesca Dego, Francesca Leonardi
Classical - Released by Chandos on Feb 25, 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Violin Sonatas Nos. 6, 7 And 10
Francesca Dego, Francesca Leonardi
Classical - Released by Universal Music Italia srL. on Oct 23, 2015
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Suite Italienne
Francesca Dego, Francesca Leonardi
Classical - Released by Universal Music Italia srL. on Oct 12, 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
24 Capricci
Classical - Released by Universal Music Italia srL. on Jan 1, 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1, 2, 5 "Spring" And 8
Francesca Dego, Francesca Leonardi
Classical - Released by Universal Music Italia srL. on Nov 18, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Op. 12, Op. 23, Op. 47
Francesca Dego, Francesca Leonardi
Classical - Released by Universal Music Italia srL. on Jan 1, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Op. 12, Op. 23, Op. 47
Francesca Dego, Francesca Leonardi
Classical - Released by Universal Music Italia srL. on Jan 1, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
'Figaro', Fantasia for Violin and Piano From 'Il Barbiere di Siviglia'
Francesca Dego, Francesca Leonardi
Classical - Released by Universal Music Italia srL. on Sep 14, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms, Ligeti, Mozart, Schumann: Horn Trios
Martin Owen, Francesca Dego, Alessandro Taverna
Chamber Music - To be released on Jun 7, 2024 by Chandos
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: Trio, Op. 40: IV. Finale
Martin Owen, Francesca Dego, Alessandro Taverna
Chamber Music - Released by Chandos on May 3, 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart : Quintet, KV 407: Rondo
Martin Owen, Francesca Dego, Alessandro Taverna
Chamber Music - Released by Chandos on May 10, 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Violin Concertos
Francesca Dego, City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Daniele Rustioni
Classical - Released by Universal Music Italia srL. on Oct 27, 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Suite Italienne
Francesca Dego, Francesca Leonardi
Classical - Released by Universal Music Italia srL. on Oct 12, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Violin Sonatas Nos. 6, 7 And 10
Francesca Dego, Francesca Leonardi
Classical - Released by Universal Music Italia srL. on Oct 23, 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo