BIOGRAPHY OF DARIO GARAU SETZU
Dario Garau Setzu was born in Cagliari/Italy on 28th June 1964.
He got his Diploma in Piano in 1986 at the Music Conservatory "L. Cherubini" in Florence under the guidance of Lady Prof. Angela Tangianu.
He specialized at the "Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst 'Mozarteum'" in Salzburg, attending from 1988 to 1994 the course "Piano with particular attention to the Contemporary Music" in Prof. Andor Losonczy's concert oriented class (further teachers of the subsidiary subjects, among others: Alfons Kontarsky/Piano, Nikolaus Harnoncourt/Ancient Music, Alexander Mullenbach/Analysis)
Garau Setzu attended several specialization courses in different disciplines (piano, harpsichord, composition, analysis, musicology, music didactics) with acclaimed musicians - Rosen, Manzoni, Fadini, Alvini, G. Wilson, Murray, Damerini, Cardini, Stockhausen, Berio, Donatoni, Sciarrino, Manoury, Murail, G. Benjamin, M. Lindberg and others -.
He has carried out an intense concert activity, as a soloist as well in chamber ensembles, often in some of the most renowned concert-halls in Europe. From 1991 to 1993 he was the pianist of the "Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik -ÖENM-", with which he took part in several prestigious European festivals of Contemporary Music.
He often recorded for radio and television stations (RAI, ORF, ZDF, Radio France, the Czech Radio, the Russian radio-television, the former USSR radio, the Bulgarian radio, etc....)
He offered a great number of World and national premières, among others of John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Giacinto Scelsi, Bjørn Fongaard, Alois Piňos, Zsolt Durkó, Fabián Panisello, Klaus Ager and Massimiliano Messieri.
For many years Garau Setzu has worked in Italy as a music director and/or pianist in several theatre productions/performances. He collaborated among others with Lina Sastri, Natalia Ginzburg and Carla Chiarelli.
In July 1993 he decided to interrupt for at least a decade concerts and every public engagement as pianist.
For over 30 years Garau Setzu has been carrying out researches on the piano literature (in a very wide sense: music for and with piano), particularly on the period dating from the end of the 19th century up to our times -and its interpreters-, all over Europe, especially in Germany ("Nazizeit" and former GDR) in Northern and above all in Eastern Europe (with particular attention to the Countries of Slavic language and culture). The researches were carried out both privately and thanks to many prestigious scholarships, grants and prizes (21 up till now), like the DAAD-Forschungsstipendium and the “C. M. Lerici research scholarship”; the most part of the Governments of the mentioned geographical areas financed his researches.
It seems no one has ever carried out a similar systematic research in Bulgaria, Slovakia, in some Countries of the (former) Yugoslavia and the former USSR, in the former GDR, even in Sweden and Norway and partially in Hungary.
At present he possesses about 17,000 compositions, over 5,000 books/essays/articles/etc... in 20 languages and further about thousands of playbills of festivals and various events, direct consequence of the above-mentioned research work. His aim is now to better catalogue and make public it in/by a central town/Institution in Europe.
In 1993 he conceived a project -in different sections- for the (re)valuation of composers, works, interpreters,...and various musical/artistic activities of Eastern Europe. "West calls East" -this is the name of the project- was illustrated by Garau Setzu on the occasion of conferences and symposia in many European towns. Some sections have already been realized: for example, the symposium/pianistic mini-festival which took place during the well-known Summer Academy of the 'Mozarteum' in Salzburg (July 1995 and August 1996). Many works, some of which dating back to the early twentieth century, were there presented (in the concerts and during his seminars) in "West-European première".
Dario Garau Setzu gives regularly lectures, seminars and conferences all over Europe, and recently in the USA, in Canada and China too, concerning the piano literature of the 20th century - and especially his research work -, (new) piano didactics concepts as well as the improvisational techniques on piano and in general. During the academic years 2004/05 and 2005/06 he gave a master class about the contemporary piano music at the Music Conservatory of Adria (Italy).
In November 2004 he resumed his concert activity. After the “new debut” in Lecco (Italy), he performed in France, Hungary, Czech Republic, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Bulgaria, Japan and in the USA.
For about 30 years he has been teaching Piano music and Piano improvisation by some secondary schools in Cagliari. The performances of improvisation of his students were presented in several occasions by symposia about the intuitive music all over Europe. Many well-known musicians met, played or gave workshops for his scholars: among others, Carlos Kleiber, Lorin Maazel, Roberto Abbado, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Ivan Fedele, Massimiliano Messieri, Alexei Descharmes, Carl Bergstrøm Nielsen, Michel van der Aa, Bernard Parmegiani, Paul Beier, Dario Luisi, Bernard Brauchli......
Besides his activity as musician, is to mention a kind of “theatre-therapy” that he built for almost 15 years for the treatment of the Senile Dementia /Alzheimer of his mother. The case of his mother, her Ukrainian actresses-assistants and in general of the “big entourage” of Ukrainian people at home (his house is nicknamed “Dom Ukrajina”) is well-known all over the world in the field of the (Senile) Dementias diseases. Among others, he has been invited to present the case of his mother at the 25th Alzheimer World Conference of Thessaloniki in March 2010.