Paolo Chiavacci
Born in Florence, Paolo Chiavacci is the first violin and founder member of the Quartetto Fonè, with which he has given concerts at leading venues in Italy, including La Scala in Milan, Santa Cecilia in Rome, La Fenice in Venice, the Amici della Musica in Florence, the Associazione Alessandro Scarlatti in Naples, and abroad, with complete cycles of the Beethoven and Bartók quartets.

He has appeared as a soloist and guest performer with various orchestras, including Mario Brunello’s Orchestra d’archi Italiana, the Padua and the Veneto Orchestras, and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma, with which he has recorded Ghedini’s Contrappunti [Naxos 8.573006].

He teaches violin and chamber music at the Bruno Maderna Conservatory in Cesena, has given masterclasses in Italy and in Japan, and assisted the Tokyo Quartet at the University of Yale in Connecticut.

Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma
was established in 2002 by the Rome Foundation (Fondazione Roma Arte – Musei), a rare example in Europe of an orchestra that was completely privately funded. Under its artistic and musical director Francesco La Vecchia who, in turn, set up the Fondazione Arts Academy, the orchestra performed regularly in Rome at the Teatro Argentina, Teatro Sistina and Auditorium Conciliazione.

It received critical and public recognition at distinguished venues in Asia, the Americas and Europe, with notable success in 2007 at the Berlin Philharmonic.

The orchestra also undertook a wide-ranging and well received series of recordings, principally for Naxos, of important compositions by Italian composers of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Busoni, Catalani, Franco Ferrara, Ghedini, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Mancinelli, Martucci, Mercadante, Petrassi, Sgambati and Wolf-Ferrari. Many of these are world premiere recordings.

The orchestra was dissolved in 2014 not long after giving the first modern performance of Giovanni Sgambati’s Symphony No. 2.

Francesco La Vecchia
Born in Rome, Francesco La Vecchia studied with his maternal grandfather and gave his first concert at the age of nine. At eighteen he was the leader of the Quintetto Boccherini and at 23 founder of the Accademia Internazionale di Musica Arts Academy of Rome, and at 27 resident conductor of the Orchestra della Istituzione Sinfonica di Roma. He has conducted more than a hundred of the leading orchestras of the world and recorded in Japan, Mexico, Canada, Brazil and Italy. The ‘Maestro’ series of recordings, named after him, was first released in 1999. Francesco La Vecchia founded the Orchestra Sinfonica del Lazio, the New World Young Orchestra, three festivals in Italy, one in Brazil and one in Mexico and has served as artistic director, principal guest conductor and musical director with orchestras, theatres and festivals in Hungary, Brazil, Mexico, Portugual and Italy. In 2002 he was appointed artistic director and resident conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma. Under his leadership the orchestra has rapidly achieved success in Europe and in highly successful tours to St Petersburg, Madrid, Belgrade, Brussels, Rio de Janeiro, London, Athens, Berlin, Beijing and Vienna. He has been the recipient of several important official awards in Italy and abroad.