Luigi Di Nunzio

Luigi Di Nunzio was born in 1991 in Naples (Italy) and started playing the alto sax at a very early age under his father’s Pasquale di Nunzio’s own guidance. At 11 he entered the Naples S. Pietro a Majella conservatory. In 2010 he graduated and obtained his diploma with the highest grade by the maestro Andrea Peace.

In 2006 he won the National Award “ Massimo Urbani” the Audience Award, to which the jury added a scholarship to attend the prestigious Berklee Jazz Clinics at Umbria Jazz, where he attended the courses given by the Maestro Dino Govoni ( where he achieved another scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston) and was selected to play at the Orvieto Jazz Winter festival 2007 ( Umbria Jazz). He won the 2008 International Victory Rotary Jazz Award as 1st classified ( by art director Francesco Cafiso). In 2008 he also took part of the Elba Jazz Contest, winning the first prize as the best group ( the Teen Quartet) and first prize for the best soloist.

Despite being very young he has had a significant experience in the field of live music performance. Thanks to a scholarship, Luigi was able to follow the Ja.M of Siena Jazz between 2008 – 2010 taking lessons from Jerry Bergonzi, George Garzone, Jeff Ballard and many others talented musicians. He was also selected to participate to the 2010 Panama Jazz Festival including a tour to the United States, in a program exchange with the Berklee Global Jazz Institute in Boston and the Superior Conservatory of Paris.

Since 2009 he has been part of the pianist Antonio Faraò’s Quartet with whom he has been on an important tour in Europe. His professionalism and his ability of reading at first sight, allowed him to fit in in orchestral contexts of great value. He played with the orchestra of Massimo Nunzi on a project commissioned by Sarzana Festival and with a duet with Francesco Cafiso. Plus, he was selected by the Villa Celimontana Jazz Festival in the review "Giovani Titani" and was able to collaborate with David Liebman and Roberta Gambarini, collecting considerable praise. In the field of music Pop he has played on various Rai and Mediaset television shows with Canadian singer Michael Bublé, he also cooperated with singer and musician Luca Jurman and in this context, his great musicality was soon noted.

On October 10, 2014 he released his debut album titled INEXISTENT for Abeat Records with Darryl hall, Gene Jackson and special guest Antonio Faraò with liner notes by Joe Lovano. In 2015 he recorded in Pianist Antonio Faraò's album BOUNDARIES for the prestigious Verve / Universal label. In 2016 he recorded on a passage of the disco EKLEKTIK (Warner Music) by Antonio Faraò with Didier Lockwood, Bireli Lagrene and Lenny White.

Despite his young age he has already played with the most important Italian and international jazz musicians, from Antonio Faraò and Danilo Perez to Dave Liebman, from Roberta Gambarini to Michael Bublè, from Tullio De Piscopo to Mike Clark, with whom he has had the opportunity to perform throughout Italy and in many European countries.

In 2019 he released his second album The Game as leader for Abeat records enjoying great success from the critics and his extracted video The Void was released in preview by Rolling Stone magazine, this made him the first Italian Jazz musician to be reviewed by this prestigious music magazine.

Luigi Di Nunzio performs on a Selmer saxophone Super Action 80 | Alto.

Photo credit: Roberto Panucci