Luca Cubisino is a polyhedral and versatile artist, whose path is paved with performance, teaching, research, and organizational activity. Prize winner in more than twenty national and international piano competitions, he has played at prestigious venues in some of the major cities throughout Europe and the U.S. (Wiener Saal in Salzburg, Doelen in Rotterdam, Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, Teatro Bonci in Cesena, as well as Rome, Bologna, Leipzig, New York, Miami, Austin, Atlanta, etc.).
During his formative years, Dr. Cubisino has worked with dozens of teachers: Antonella Scuderi, Flavio Meniconi, Franco Scala, Aquiles Delle Vigne, François-Joël Thiollier, Antonio Ballista, Choong-Mo Kang, Gerald Fauth, Bruno Canino, Enrico Pace, Anton Nel, Jason Kwak, Boris Slutsky, Marina Lomazov, Tian Ying, Naoko Takao, Kevin Kenner, among others. Always eager to learn new teaching methods, Dr. Cubisino has been focusing for years on the pedagogical approach of Vincenzo Scaramuzza, who taught the very young Martha Argerich. Thanks to Franco Scala, Dr. Cubisino was able to closely understand the peculiarities of this method, which he now applies to his students.
Besides his solo career, Dr. Cubisino’s love for chamber music has brought him to collaborate with incredible artists such as Dario Russo, a rising-star voice with whom he has been touring across the U.S. in 2018, performing Winterreise by Franz Schubert. In 2020, he was invited to be a guest artist of the Italian Ensemble for a series of concerts that were supposed to take place in different cities in Italy and the U.S., including the Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Because of the pandemic caused by COVID-19 the concert tour has been postponed to a later date.
Dr. Cubisino has been collaborating with the San Giacomo Festival in Bologna for nearly a decade, helping with the organization of almost two hundred concerts every year, whose income supports the Daily Meal of the Poor at the Augustinian Fathers of Bologna (sangiacomofestival.it). He has been also on the Board of Directors of Kaleidoscope MusArt, a non-profit organization that focuses its activity mostly on contemporary classical music (kaleidoscopemusart.com). He has recently accepted the invitation to join the Miami Music Teachers Association Executive Board as Vice President/Programming (miamimta.org).
Dr. Cubisino is the Artistic Director of AmiCa, a Sicilian cultural organization for which he organizes AmiCaFest (amicafest.com), a 2-week piano festival in Southern Italy that embraces, besides regular activities (lessons and masterclasses), extra events such as exhibitions, book presentations, cultural classes, etc. Dr. Cubisino and AmiCaFest’s staff work with no compensation and for the good of the community and its cultural enrichment.
Besides being regularly invited to adjudicate local, national and international competitions, in 2020 Dr. Cubisino envisioned the #StayHome International Piano Competition (stayhomecompetition.com), the first of its kind thought for the Internet audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown.
Participants prepared and performed from home and jury members evaluated each round live by joining a videoconference, while the performances were streamed online. This competition reached more than 70,000 live views and got the attention of the founder of the Alink-Argerich Foundation, Gustav Alink, who wrote about it on The World of Piano Competitions magazine.
Dr. Cubisino owns a Bachelor’s Degree from the Conservatory of Music “Vincenzo Bellini” in Catania (Italy); a Master’s Degree from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Rotterdam (The Netherlands); a second Master’s Degree from the Conservatory of Music “Bruno Maderna” in Cesena; a third Master’s Degree from Texas State University-San Marcos (U.S.), where he was awarded the 2014 “Piano Achievement Award”; and a Doctoral of Musical Arts’ Degree from the Frost School of Music, University of Miami, where he studied under the guidance of Professors Tian Ying and Kevin Kenner, earning a keyboard pedagogy’s cognate with Dr. Naoko Takao. At the University of Miami, he served as a Teaching Assistant and was awarded the 2016 recipient of the Presser Award for his project of publishing and recording Ottorino Respighi’s early piano works.
Dr. Cubisino currently teaches at the Preparatory Program of the Frost School of Music, where he is also the Coordinator of a program he has developed specifically for advanced piano students (Frost Prep Advanced Piano Program). The program offers a comprehensive curriculum that allows students to develop technical and artistic abilities at the highest level. Dr. Cubisino’s students have been playing for eminent pianists, winning top prizes in more than 40 piano competitions, awarded scholarships, playing with major orchestras of South Florida, and accepted into the undergraduate programs of prestigious universities in the U.S. and Europe.
