Antonio Pompa-Baldi

Cleveland International Piano Competition

Born and raised in Foggia, Italy, ANTONIO POMPA-BALDI won the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 1999 and embarked on a career that continues to extend across five continents. A top prize winner at the 1998 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition of Paris, France, Antonio Pompa-Baldi also won a silver medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Mr. Pompa-Baldi appears regularly at the world's major concert venues including New York's Carnegie Hall, Cleveland's Severance Hall, Milan's Sala Verdi, Boston's Symphony Hall, Shanghai's Grand Theatre, Beijing National Center for the Performing Arts, and Paris' Salle Pleyel, to name a few.

He has collaborated with leading conductors including Hans Graf, James Conlon, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Theodore Kuchar, Benjamin Zander, Louis Lane, and Keith Lockhart, performing with orchestras such as the Houston Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Berliner Symphoniker, Orchestre National de Paris-Radio France, National Orchestra of Ukraine, and Fort Worth Symphony. In chamber music settings, he has performed with leading ensembles such as Takacs String Quartet, Alison Balsom, Sharon Robinson, Cavani String Quartet, and principals of leading orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, and New York Philharmonic. 

With a concerto repertoire including more than 60 works, Mr. Pompa-Baldi recently performed cycles of all the Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos, the five Beethoven Piano Concertos, and both Brahms Concertos. He also gave several performances of the Respighi A minor Piano Concerto, a piece he premiered in the US. Pompa-Baldi has played recitals in most major venues over the world. In 2019, he was a returning guest at the third edition of the Lang Lang International Piano Festival in Shenzhen, followed by an extensive tour of China that included performances in Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Shenyang, and Dalian. He also performed concerts throughout the United States, in Bremen (Germany), Monterrey (Mexico), Napoli and Todi (Italy), Malaga (Spain), Vienna (Austria), and Nancy (France). Upcoming concerts include the Cape Town Philharmonic (South Africa), the Husum Festival (Germany), and a tour of Asia.

Mr. Pompa-Baldi has recorded more than 30 CDs to date for various labels, including Harmonia Mundi, Steinway, TwoPianists, Azica, Brilliant Classics, and Centaur Records. Among them, the complete piano and chamber music works of Grieg, the Josef Rheinberger Piano Sonatas, the complete Hummel Piano Sonatas, and CDs dedicated to Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Respighi, and Rachmaninoff.

For the Steinway label, Pompa-Baldi recorded a disc of songs by Francis Poulenc and Edith Piaf, arranged for solo piano by the Italian composer Roberto Piana, to commemorate the 50th year of the passing of both French musical icons, as well as a CD titled “Napoli”, which features new piano versions of famous Neapolitan songs. Antonio Pompa-Baldi is a Steinway Artist. He is often invited to judge international piano competitions such as the Cleveland, Hilton Head, E-Competition, BNDES Rio de Janeiro, and Edward Grieg, among many others. He serves as president of the jury and artistic advisor for the San Jose International Piano Competition since 2006. 

Pompa-Baldi is on the piano faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music. His students have been prizewinners in important competitions such as Marguerite Long, Hilton Head, Isang Yun, and Gina Bachauer. He is regularly invited to teach masterclasses in countless Universities, Music Schools, and Festivals in the U.S. and all over the world and holds honorary guest professorships at the China Conservatory of Beijing, as well as the Shenyang Conservatory. 

In 2015, Pompa-Baldi founded the Todi International Music Masters festival, of which he is Artistic Director and Faculty Member. This summer festival takes place every August in the beautiful Italian town of Todi. It features 15 concerts in 15 days, renown faculty members, an international student roster, and the celebration of music through performances and masterclasses.