artistic and musical director of the Ukho Ensemble Kyiv
former chief conductor of the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra
Luigi Gaggero, Italian conductor, cimbalom player, and pedagogue, has built his artistic path at the intersection of classical, contemporary, and early music. His diverse musical activity has led him to conduct both symphony orchestras and ensembles specializing in Baroque or experimental repertoires. His artistic vision draws from an imaginary nourished by medieval painting, the poetry of Dante and Cavalcanti, the cinema of Bergman and Béla Tarr, the music of Gesualdo, Mozart, and Kurtág, as well as the thought of Simone Weil and Florensky. His interpretations, based on an empathetic encounter between performer, composer, and listener, are acclaimed for their emotional intensity and expressive richness.
As Chief Conductor of the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra from 2019 to 2023, he led the orchestra to national and international recognition, notably establishing a pioneering collaboration with the prestigious German agency KD Schmid. Under his direction, the orchestra performed in some of Europe’s leading venues — the Berliner Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Wolkenturm Grafenegg, and the Warsaw Philharmonic — to enthusiastic acclaim from the international press. In 2022, Luigi Gaggero and the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra were invited to perform at the NATO Summit in Madrid, and their collaboration was honored with the Musical Contest Prize from the Prince Pierre Foundation of Monaco.
With the Ukho Ensemble (Kyiv), which he co-founded, he conducted three sold-out opera productions at the National Opera of Ukraine and recorded several CDs for the labels Winter & Winter (Gervasoni), Kairos (Hosokawa and Andreyev), and EMA Vinci Records (Solbiati). His innovative approach to early music with the vocal ensemble La Dolce Maniera (which he also co-founded) is captured in two recordings dedicated to Monteverdi and Gesualdo (Stradivarius), praised for their vitality and emotional depth.
Before focusing on conducting, Luigi Gaggero pursued a 25-year career as a cimbalom soloist and percussionist, performing with leading European orchestras and ensembles such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Münchner Philharmoniker, Filarmonica della Scala, Camerata Salzburg, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre Symphonique de La Monnaie, and Ensemble InterContemporain. He collaborated with renowned conductors including Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Péter Eötvös, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Riccardo Muti, Jonathan Nott, Kirill Petrenko, and Simon Rattle.
As guest conductor and instrumentalist, he has performed at major venues and festivals worldwide — including Carnegie Hall, the Salzburger Festspiele, BBC Proms, the Venice Biennale, and Klangspuren — sharing the stage with artists such as Juliane Banse, Sandrine Cantoreggi, David Grimal, Barbara Hannigan, and András Keller.
Luigi Gaggero studied percussion and conducting with Andrea Pestalozza, who inspired his passion for 20th-century music, and cimbalom with Márta Fábián. He was the first percussionist to be awarded the Soloist Diploma with distinction at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin, studying with Edgar Guggeis and Rainer Seegers.
A committed pedagogue, he teaches cimbalom at the Conservatoire and the Académie Supérieure de Musique of Strasbourg, where he also founded and directed the Academy’s Contemporary Music Ensemble. He is the author of A Natural Gesture – Thoughts on Musical Praxis and Conducting (Wolke Verlag, 2023), and The Cimbalom – Reference Guide for Performers and Composers (2024). His love of cinema led him to explore the links between music, time, and the sacred on screen, culminating in his book Between Heaven and Mud: Andrei Tarkovsky and Béla Tarr, the Sacred Time (2024), a reflection on transcendence and immanence in the work of these two visionary directors. His upcoming book, The Breath of Time, will be devoted to the natural law underlying the rules of musical agogics, at the crossroads of perception, gesture, and inner rhythm.
(IV 2025, Not to be altered without permission)