Gabriele Ruggeri

Born in Messina in 1994, he was introduced to the world of music at a very young age, inspired by his mother’s piano playing. After graduating with honors in percussion instruments from the Messina Conservatory, he embarked on an intense international training program, participating in seminars and advanced courses dedicated to solo and chamber music repertoire with some of the world’s leading figures: he earned a Master’s Degree in Soloist Studies from the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany, under the guidance of Peter Prommel and Fumito Nunoya, and subsequently a Master’s Degree in Interpretation of Contemporary Music from the “S. Cecilia” Conservatory in Rome with Antonio Caggiano.
Active as a chamber musician, soloist, and contemporary performer, he collaborates with various ensembles and percussion groups and dedicates part of his career to researching and promoting classical and contemporary repertoire. He has performed at prestigious international institutions, including the Weill Hall of Carnegie Hall in New York, the Davis Performance Hall at Radford University in Virginia, and the Blue Candlelight Music Series in Dallas (USA), the Arcrea Convention Centre in Himeji and the Futaba Gakuen in Shizuoka (Japan), the International Percussion Festival at the Adams Music Centre in Ittervoort (Netherlands), the 1000 Beats Festival in the archaeological area of Selinunte, the Talos Festival in Ruvo di Puglia, the Fernando Remacha Auditorium in Navarra (Spain), the Brahms Saal in Detmold, the Frakzionen Festival in Bielefeld and the Konzerthaus in Dortmund (Germany), the Nordic Percussion Festival at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus (Denmark), and the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.
As an orchestral percussionist, he has collaborated with numerous ensembles, including the Orchestra del Teatro Vittorio Emanuele in Messina, the Detmolder Chamber Orchestra, and the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie in Herford, participating in major symphonic and operatic productions.
He is a founding member, along with Japanese percussionist Rika Ikeuchi, of the ensemble Hisho Percussion, with which he has toured Europe, the United States, and Japan. The duo stands out for its programs that range from original contemporary repertoire to transcriptions curated by Ruggeri himself, spanning Baroque, Romantic, and Impressionist music.
He has received several national and international awards, including the 2019 Interpretationswettbewerb in Germany and the Ibla Grand Prize in Ragusa.