Described as "an amazingly talented pianist" by Musica, Emma Abbate enjoys a demanding career as a piano accompanist and chamber musician. She has performed in duo recitals for international festivals and concert societies in Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal and USA, and at many prestigious UK venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre, Royal Opera House, St John’s Smith Square, St George’s, Bristol and at the Aldeburgh Festival. No stranger to the airwaves, she has recently presented an episode of Inside Music on BBC Radio 3.
As well as being the co-founder of Duality and the Zemlinsky Trio, Emma regularly performs with many of the leading ensembles of her generation, including the Tippett Quartet, Sacconi Quartet, Ensemble Perpetuo, Veles Ensemble, and numerous singers such as Hanna Hipp, Ashley Riches, Anna Pirozzi, Helen Charlston and Anna Dennis. Her repertoire ranges from duet sonatas by Johann Christian Bach to contemporary works by Iain Farrington.
Emma has made a series of acclaimed recordings devoted to Italian vocal chamber music, the latest of which is the world-première Franco Alfano: Songs with the leading Italian soprano Anna Pirozzi. Previously, Emma has recorded Sera d'inverno: Songs by Ildebrando Pizzetti with mezzo-soprano Hanna Hipp, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Shakespeare Sonnets with bass-baritone Ashley Riches, all on Resonus Classics.
A keen advocate of contemporary music, Emma has released two discs devoted to works by Stephen Dodgson that include his piano quintets with the Tippett Quartet. Other world-première recordings include works for cello and piano by Algernon Ashton and Krzysztof Meyer with Evva Mizerska. Emma also cultivates an active interest in historical keyboards, and has performed and recorded on a range of original instruments for the Finchcocks Charity, at Hatchlands Park and the Russell Collection. Together with Julian Perkins, she has recorded the complete keyboard duets by Mozart and Weber on original Viennese fortepianos. Julian and Emma's latest duet release, entitled Summer Dreams, brings together the complete works for piano duet by three major American composers: Edward MacDowell, Amy Beach and Samuel Barber. Previously, they had released Tournament for Twenty Fingers, featuring piano duets by British composers from the twentieth century: the disc has received 5 star reviews on BBC Music Magazine and has been chosen by Scala Radio as Album of the Weekend.
Based in London, Emma is a professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, a staff coach at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and is regularly invited to teach at the Verbier Festival Academy in Switzerland. Following her graduation from the S. Pietro a Majella Conservatoire in Naples and an Advanced Diploma from the S. Cecilia Conservatoire in Rome, Emma studied in London with Yonty Solomon. She completed her studies with Geoffrey Pratley as a scholar at the Royal Academy of Music, from where she graduated with distinction. She was also awarded an Italian Literature and Culture degree cum laude from the Federico II University in Naples, and has been elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of her ‘significant contribution’ thus far to the music profession.
