Giovanni Sollima is an internationally renowned cellist and the most frequently performed Italian composer in the world.
He collaborates with artists of the calibre of Riccardo Muti, Yo-Yo Ma, Ivan Fischer, Viktoria Mullova, Ruggero Raimondi, Mario Brunello, Kathryn Stott, Giuseppe Andaloro, Toni Florio, Yuri Bashmet, Katia and Marielle Labeque, Giovanni Antonini, Ottavio Dantone, Patti Smith, Stefano Bollani, Paolo Fresu and Antonio Albanese, and with orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Liverpool Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Moscow Soloists, the Berlin Konzerthausorchester, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico, the Cappella Neapolitana, the Accademia Bizantina, the Holland Baroque Society and the Budapest Festival Orchestra.
For film, theatre, television and dance, he has composed and performed music for Peter Greenaway, John Turturro, Bob Wilson, Carlos Saura, Marco Tullio Giordana, Peter Stein, Lasse Gjertsen, Anatolij Vasiliev, Karole Armitage and Carolyn Carlson.
He has performed in some of the world’s most prestigious venues, including Alice Tully Hall, the Knitting Factory, Carnegie Hall (New York), Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall (London), Salle Gaveau (Paris), Teatro alla Scala (Milan), the Sydney Opera House and Suntory Hall (Tokyo).
Since 2010, Sollima has taught at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, where he was awarded the title of Academician.
In 2012, he founded the 100 Cellos together with Enrico Melozzi.
In 2015, he created the ‘sound logo’ for Expo in Milan and inaugurated the new exhibition space for Michelangelo’s Pietà Rondanini.
In the field of composition, he explores various genres using ancient, oriental and electric instruments, as well as instruments of his own invention, performing in the Sahara Desert, underwater, or with an ice cello.
His recording career began in 1998 with Aquilarco, a CD produced by Philip Glass for Point Music, which was followed by a further twelve albums released by Sony, Egea and Decca.
He has brought to light the music of Giovanni Battista Costanzi, an 18th-century composer, recording his Sonatas and Symphonies for cello and basso continuo, released by Glossa.
In October 2018, he received the Anner Bijlsma Award at the Cello Biennale in Amsterdam.
In 2020, his two latest works, The Jungle Book and Deep Water, made their debut.
In 2021, the documentary film N-Ice Cello was released, chronicling the evocative journey of the ice cello built by Tim Linhart.
Giovanni Sollima plays a Francesco Ruggieri cello built in Cremona in 1679.

The village band and major international awards, the Sardinian countryside and his records, his discovery of jazz and countless collaborations, his love for the little things and Paris. There are very few people capable of bringing together such a diverse array of elements and transforming them into an incredible and rapid stylistic evolution.
Paolo Fresu has succeeded precisely in a country like Italy where – for far too long – jazz culture was as well-known as Shakespeare or Matisse’s paintings, where Louis Armstrong was little more than a sideshow attraction in the madcap Sanremo showcases and Miles Davis was discovered as a ‘black’ and talented musician well after his years of peak creativity.
The ‘magic’ lies in the immense naturalness of a man who, like few others, has managed to convey the deepest meaning of his truly magical homeland through the most precious and free of the arts.
At this stage of his long and successful career, there is no longer any need to list the recordings, awards and various experiences that have established him on the international stage and made his music universally loved: within the sound of his trumpet lies the lifeblood that has brought prestige to the nouvelle vague of European jazz, the depth of a thought that is not merely musical, the generosity that places him in the right place at the right time but, above all, the inexhaustible passion that has always sustained him.
Paolo’s present is – as usual – whirlwind, worthy of the omnivorous and creative artist that everyone recognises in him.
Today (apart from a fascinating literary side that has led to the publication of several books and the prestigious honorary degrees awarded by the University of Milan-Bicocca and the renowned Berklee School of Music in New York) his life revolves around his historic quintet, now approaching four decades of mutual respect, but also around the “Devil”, united for twenty years, or his new trio with two leading figures of contemporary jazz, Dino Rubino and Marco Bardoscia, or finally the surprising “Heroes”, a tribute to David Bowie in which he collaborates with established names such as Petra Magoni and Christian Meyer and with some of the most prominent figures of the Italian new wave jazz scene, including Francesco Diodati, Francesco Ponticelli and Filippo Vignato.
Not to be forgotten are important international collaborations such as the successful duo partnership with Uri Caine, or the great names of Carla Bley, Steve Swallow and Ralph Towner, who acted as a bridge for Paolo’s entry into the circle of the celebrated and prestigious ECM label, for which other notable recordings have been released.
His most recent work sees him active, with a more international focus, in a trio with Richard Galliano and the Swedish pianist Jan Lundgren (“Mare Nostrum”) and in various new ventures with leading figures from the contemporary jazz scene, including, among many others, Omar Sosa, Jacques Morelenbaum, Trilok Gurtu, Lars Danielsson, Eivind Aarset and Arild Andersen. Also of interest are his projects with some of the leading figures in the Italian literary and theatrical world (Mariangela Gualtieri, Ascanio Celestini, Lella Costa, Stefano Benni, Alessandro Bergonzoni, Giuseppe Battiston), his involvement in the theatre world itself as a leading performer through productions by the Teatro Stabile di Bolzano, including the successful plays “Tempo di Chet”, “Tango Macondo” and “Kind of Miles”, as well as, finally, a new series of small but significant collaborations with the “intelligent” music of the Italian folk scene or with electronic music.
Film music and “special projects” such as his extraordinary theatrical “solo” performance bring things full circle, alongside the small yet grand and mad adventure that led him to celebrate his 50th birthday in 2011 with 50 concerts, over 50 consecutive days, featuring 50 different ensembles and projects each day, set against 50 scenic masterpieces of his native Sardinia. Not to be outdone is the fine project dedicated instead to his significant 60th birthday, thanks to Bologna, which has now become, on a par with Paris, one of his key locations.
Also missing from the list is the important series of projects dedicated to various aspects of the “classical” world tout court which, thanks to bespoke works, is in store with some lovely surprises featuring musicians capable of ‘looking ahead’; or, finally, the wonderful new promotional work that Paolo is undertaking for many rising stars of the contemporary jazz scene through the opportunities offered to them by his new label, Tǔk Music, built to look to the future and now a leading force on the international stage.