Irene Benciolini — violinist, Secretary General of Appassionata Mente ETS.
Born in Bologna in 1993, she graduated from the Cesare Pollini Conservatory of Padua with Maestro Federico Parravicini in the summer of 2020; since 2021 she has been studying baroque violin at the Dall'Abaco Conservatory of Verona with Maestro Davide Monti.
She has taken part in masterclasses and violin specialisation courses with maestros Oleksandr Semchuk, Enrico Balboni, Peter Szanto, Federico Parravicini, Davide Monti and Alberto Martini.
In 2015 and 2016 she attended an orchestral masterclass in Germany, at Scheersberg, within the Deutsch-Skandinavische Musikwoche, under maestros Mika Eichenholz and Per Borin.
In spring and summer 2021 she took part in the orchestral training course “Obbiettivo Orchestra” at the Scuola di Alto Perfezionamento Musicale of Saluzzo, with Maestro Donato Renzetti and the first violins of the Teatro Regio in Turin, Sergej Galaktionov and Stefano Vagnarelli. In summer 2021 she was selected for an orchestral course with Maestro Leon Spierer, historic first violin of the Berliner Philharmoniker, organised by the Società del Quartetto di Vicenza.
Since 2021 she has collaborated closely with the chamber orchestra L'Appassionata of Verona, performing at the Teatro Ristori, the Sala Maffeiana and the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona and at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, alongside leading international artists such as violinist Gil Shaham and flautist Patrick Gallois.
In winter 2019-2020 she took part in a tour of China with the Antonio Vivaldi Orchestra, performing at the Gansu, Dalian, Anshan and Jinan Grand Theaters. She has also collaborated with numerous Italian orchestral and chamber ensembles, including the Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Verona, the Mosaika Multiethnic Orchestra of Baldo-Garda, the Orchestra Sperimentale and the Cesare Pollini Symphony Orchestra of Padua and the Master Brescia Orchestra; since 2022 she has performed with the Gaga Symphony Orchestra of Padua.
She is a founding member of Ensemble Terra Mater, a research and performance group devoted to the oral-tradition music of the Mediterranean area, made up of five multi-instrumentalists who graduated from various Italian conservatories.
The ensemble won first prize (2017) and second prize (2021) at the “Music 4 the Next Generation” competition, was a finalist in the “Generations” competition of the Ethnos International Festival in Naples (2018) and received the Scuola Musica Popolare special prize at the national “Folk and World Competition” (2022). In 2019 it was broadcast on Rai Radio 3 for the programme “Piazza Verdi”. It has recorded two albums for the Velut Luna label, Terra Mater (2018) and Odýsseia (2020), and has created projects in dialogue with theatre, including Dantea, staged in July 2021 on the stage of the Roman Theatre in Verona for the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of Dante's death, with text and direction by Alessandro Anderloni in collaboration with the Gaspari Foundation.
Since 2016 she has taught violin at various scholastic, cultural and musical institutions in the Verona area, including the Gardart cultural association of Peschiera del Garda, the Bruno Maderna Civic School of Music in Verona, the Comprehensive Institute 02 Saval-Parona of Verona and the Villa Buri Musica association, in collaboration with the Orchestra Giovanile Veronese.
She is Secretary General of Appassionata Mente ETS, a role she carries out on a pro bono basis.