Leonardo Domenico Ludovico Chiodo

Born in Helsinki, Finland, in 1998. Since 2020, he studies at the Reina Sofía School of Music’s Aline Foriel-Destezet Cello Chair with Professor Ivan Monighetti. He has been granted a scholarship by Fundación Albéniz. Her Majesty Queen Sofía handed him the Diploma to the most outstanding student of his chair in the 2022-2023 academic year.

A young cellist with Italian, Russian, and Finnish backgrounds, he studied at the Sibelius Academy in his hometown with professors Hannu Kiiski and Martti Rousi. From 2019 onwards, he has attended classes by Frans Helmerson at the Kronberg Academy (Germany) and by Ivan Monighetti in Basel (Switzerland). He has also attended masterclasses by David Geringas, Arto Noras, Pieter Wispelwey, Jiang Wang, Young Chang Cho, Enrico Bronzi, Ola Karlsson, Morten Zeuthen, Nils Ullner, Anssi Karttunen, Niklas Schmidt, Young-Hoon Song, Chu Yi-Bing, Emanuel Gruber, Asier Polo, Pablo Ferrández, Ralf Gothóni, Oliver Wille, and Krzysztof Chorzelski (string ensembles).

He has been awarded in several competitions, including the 6th International Paulo Cello Competition (2018, Finland), the 13th Finnish National Cello Competition (2018, Finland), and the 10th International Music Competition in memory of Evgeny Aleksandrovich Mravinsky in St Petersburg (2016, Russia). In 2019 he was also awarded at De Unges Konsert – Young Soloist Competition in Bergen (Norway).

He has performed with the Sibelius Academy Orchestra, conducted by Chloé Dufresne; the Orchestra della Toscana, under the baton of Antonino Fogliani; the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo; the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Ruut Kiiski; the Jyväskylä Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Eva Ollikainen, and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Cathrine Winnes.

He has also participated in several festivals, including European Concerts in St. Petersburg (Russia), Portogruaro (Italy), Kaunas Young Musician (Lithuania), Chigiana Music (Italy), Santander Encounter of Music and Academy (Spain), Qingdao Cello (China), Shanghai Cello (China), Beijing Supercello (China), and in Finland, in Naantali, Turku Musical, SibaFest, Helsinki Cellofest, Rajaton Taide, and KesäVirratSoi.

As a student of the School, he has been a member of the Freixenet Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Afkham, Juanjo Mena and Péter Csaba, as well as that of the Fundación EDP Camerata under the baton of Giovanni Guzzo and Paul Goodwin. She has performed within the World Heritage Cities series in Santiago de Compostela and Baeza. In 2021 he participated in the 30th anniversary tour of the School with the Freixenet Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada, with whom he performed at Madrid's Teatro Real, at Bratislava's Reduta Hall, at Budapest's Liszt Ferenc Academy and at Vienna's Musikverein. He has been part of the Stoneshield and Mendelssohn quartets, the Management Solutions Tchaikovsky Trio, the Google Da Vinci Ensemble and the Prosegur Albéniz Quartet and Ensemble, with whom he was awarded the Mention to the most outstanding chamber group in the category of string quartets in 2021. He is currently part of the Austrias Piano. He plays a cello made by Carlo Giuseppe Testore in 1718, loaned by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.