Domenico Savio Mottola, was born in Gragnano in 1993. He began to study the guitar in 2004 with M° Fabio Mastroianni and from 2006 with M° Marco Caiazza.
In 2012 he was admitted to the “San Pietro a Majella” Conservatory of Naples where, in the 2015, he graduated in the class of M° Vincenzo Amabile with a honours bachelor’s degree and special mention.
Currently he is studying with M° Frédéric Zigante at the “Vivaldi” Conservatory of Alessandria to earn the Master’s degree.
From October 2015, he is perfecting with M° Paolo Pegoraro and M° Adriano del Sal at the Segovia Guitar Academy in Pordenone.
Since 2009, he has been performing concerts as soloist and chamber music in Italy and abroad.
He has been invited to important musical festivals. He took part to a masterclass with international artists, including: Aniello Desiderio, Leo Brouwer, Marcin Dylla, Frederic Zigante, Lorenzo Micheli, Manuel Barrueco.
In 2017 he won important prizes: First prize at the “National Art Prize”, established by MIUR: “The National Art Prize is a competition that involves all the Italian Conservatories and Academies, which select their best student for every instrumental and artistic specialty. A jury formed by internationally artists goes on to identify the best candidate for each specialty”; First prize at the international guitar competition “Niccolò Paganini” in Parma and the first prize at the international guitar competition in Mottola (TA), which will enable him to make his record debut.
Some of the other awards include: First absolute Prize at National Guitar Competition “Giulio Rospigliosi” in 2013, Third Prize (2014) and Second Prize (2015) at the International Mottola Guitar Competition, First Prize at the Andrés Segovia International Guitar Competition (Pescara) in 2014 and second international guitar competition “Andrés Segovia” (Linares) in 2015, third place in the competition dedicated to “Claudio Abbado”in Lucca in 2015 and second place at the “Paris Guitar Foundation” international guitar competition in 2016. He has been a jury member in many competitions and has teached to a masterclass at guitar festivals.
Niklas Johansen is a classical guitarist born in 1989 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has recently received international acclaim after winning several international competitions. His prizes include:
Niklas started playing guitar at the age of 9, and began his studies in 2009 at The Royal Danish Academy of Music under Jesper Sivebæk. After finishing his bachelor exam attending the highest grade possible he went to Alicante in 2013 and finished a Master in Classical Guitar Performance with professors David Russell, Manuel Barrueco and others. After finishing his final exam attending the highest possible he received the Latin honor “cum laude”. In 2014 he went one year abroad and studied a year with Ricardo Gallén at the Hochschule Für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar, Germany. In 2015 he played his Master’s Recital in Denmark and received the highest grade.
Besides his studies he has received several lessons with high-profiled guitarists. In 2012 he had a two week summer course in Salzburg with Marco Tamayo, and he has received master classes with musicians such as Marcin Dylla, Alvaro Pierri, Pavel Steidl, Scott Tennant, Ana Vidovic, Judicael Perroy, Costas Cotsiolis and Meng Su. He has played concerts as a soloist and in chamber groups in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Iceland and Spain. In 2015 he played the opening concert at Copenhagen Guitar Festival, and in 2013 a shared solo concert with Jakob Bangsø at International Guitar Festival Aarhus. He is also very interested in contemporary music and has performed at the modern music festivals Pulsar Festival in Copenhagen 2011 and Ung Nordisk Musikfestival in Malmö (Sweden) 2014. His interest in contemporary music has also led to several first performances (most recently a work for guitar trio by Martin Lohse) and several chamber music projects with instruments such as harpsichord, chinese pipa, computer etc.
At the moment Niklas is recording his debut album in Germany. The label contract for this album was a part of the competition prize in Mottola in July. His future plans include additional guitar festivals and competitions as well as further studying.
Tiit Peterson
