About
Winner in the 2025 edition of the prestigious Abbiati Prize awarded by the Italian Music Critics and the influential “Classeek Award” at the ICMA (International Classical Music Awards), Ettore Pagano was born in Rome in 2003, and began studying Cello at the age of nine.
A graduate of the Conservatory of S. Cecilia in Rome with honors and honorable mention, he began at an early age an intense concert activity in Italy and abroad, coming to play in institutions of the utmost prestige, including his debut with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, both in the season in Torino with live RAI 5 broadcast, and live RAI 1 broadcast on the 78th anniversary for the Republic Day at the Quirinale in the presence of the Head of State, as well as his very recent debut with the Accadeia Nazionale di S.Cecilia.
In June 2022 he won First Prize, Best Sonata Prize and two other Special Prizes at the 18th Kachaturian International Competition.
Ettore obtained the Artist Diploma at the Walter Stauffer Academy in Cremona under Antonio Meneses and previously attended the Pavia Cello Academy with Enrico Dindo. A student at the Accademia Chigiana under A.Meneses and David Geringas ( where he also obtained the Diploma of Honor and in 2020 the Scholarship of the Rotary Club of Siena), he is currently attending Jens Peter Maintz’s courses at the Universität der Künste, in Berlin.
Since 2013 he has been awarded first prize overall in more than 40 national and international competitions.
Notably, in 2017 he was awarded a scholarship and a concert prize at the prestigious Carnegie Hall by the New York International Artists Association; in 2019 he won First Prize at the “Young Musicians” Competition sponsored by La Filarmonica della Scala; during 2020 he won First Prize at the “J.Brahms” Competition in Portschach, with the highest score in the competition’s history, and also in 2020 he won the Anna Kull Competition in Graz (Austria). It’s also worth mentioning the First Prize at the Jugend Musiziert 56th Bundeswettbewerb Competition (Germany), the Salieri Prize at the 10th “Antonio Salieri” International Competition, for the first time awarded the two prizes to a single competitor in the history of the competition. He also received the Second prize (as well as two special jury prizes) at the Enescu international Cello Competition in Bucharest (2024).
In addition to regular invitations to the most important concert societies and orchestral institutions in Italy, he has already been invited to play on important international stages both in recitals and as soloist with orchestras in Paris, Germany (Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Duesseldorf), Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Finland, Armenia, Kuwait, Oman, and the United States of America, among others.
Also during 2025, invitations to the concert festivals “Stars & Rising Stars” in Munich, and “Stars von Morgen” at the Brucknerhaus in Linz, and his debut at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, where he was also recently awarded the “A Life for Music – Youth” prize, are worth mentioning.
Ettore Pagano plays an Ignazio Ongaro (Venice – 1777) cello entrusted to him by Setaro Fine Instruments.
