Giacomo Banella

Giacomo Banella began playing the Double Bass at the age of 11, graduating in 2013 at the Conservatoire ‘Luigi Boccherini’ in Lucca, Italy. In August 2015, he completed a Masters in Performance from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he studied under Luis Cabrera Martín. He has performed on numerous occasions as part of the orchestra, as well as a soloist, taking part in projects with the London Symphony Orchestra, Southbank Sinfonia, Camerata Alma Viva and other freelance-based orchestras in the UK. Since 2014, he has been Principal Double Bass of the London Graduate Orchestra, and since 2015 he has been a member of the Orpheus Sinfonia Orchestra. In December 2014, 2015, and 2017 he was Principal Double Bass of the Young Musicians European Orchestra, an international festival orchestra conducted by Paolo Olmi; he has also performed as a Soloist with the same Orchestra in 2016 December, touring across Italy and Palestine. Giacomo has also taken part to several International Music Festivals, such the Musique-Cordiale festival Academy, in France (Seillans, August 2014), in the role of Principal Double Bass, and the AL BUSTAN Festival in Lebanon (Beirut, February 2016) as Tutti Double Bass. He has attended numerous masterclasses with teachers and performers, such as Rinat Ibragimov, Thomas Martin Joel Quarrington and Thierry Barbé. He has just completed the first year of a second Master degree at the Royal Conservatory of Scotland in Glasgow, the guidance of Nikita Naumov, where he has collaborated with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra as part of the RSNO Orchestral Experience Scheme. In July 2017 he was awarded the Eugene Cruft Prize for Double Bass from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Since January 2018 is a member of the Southbank Sinfonia, performing regularly at St. John’s Church in Waterloo, and with which in July 2018 he has been performing the Nino Rota Divertimento Concertante for Double Bass and Orchestra as part of the inaugural concert of the 2018 Anghiari Festival Edition. Giacomo is very grateful for the generous support from the Martin Musical Scholarship Fund as well as the Leverhulme Scholarship Trust, both of which have helped him in completing his studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He also would like to thank the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland for granting his scholarship for the year 2016/2017.