Giovanni Sollima  Born in Palermo into a family of musicians, Giovanni Sollima studied cello with Giovanni Perriera and Antonio Janigro and composition with his father Eliodoro Sollima and Milko Kelemen.  He began an international career as cellist, collaborating among others with Claudio Abbado, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Jörg Demus, Martha Argerich, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Bruno Canino, DJ Scanner, Victoria Mullova, Riccardo Muti, Ruggero Raimondi, Patti Smith, Philip Glass and Yo-Yo Ma.  Sollima performed in prestigious places, but also in alternative venues: Carnegie Hall, BAM, Alice Tully Hall, Knitting Factory in New York, Wigmore and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Salle Gaveau in Paris, Musicgebouw in Amsterdam, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Kunstfest in Weimar, La Scala in Milan, Santa Cecilia in Rome, Festivals of Kronberg, Kuopio, Istanbul, Tokyo, Venice, Ravenna, Spoleto, Shanghai (Expo 2010).  As composer, Sollima has been captivated by every kind of languages and has thought to create new blends among the most diverse genres by combining elements of classical and rock music, as well as of music of all the Mediterranean area. He composes for acoustic and electric instruments, and others invented by himself or created for him.  In addition, he composed music for directors and choreographers, such as Peter Greenaway, Bob Wilson, Peter Stein, John Turturro, Karole Armitage and Carolyn Carlson. With the videographer Lasse Gjertsen he realized Daydream. Among the CDs worth mentioning is Aquilarco, Works and We Were Trees recorded in 2008 together with the cellist Monika Leskovar and the Solistenensemble Kaleidoscop from Berlin. 

In September 2009 he performed in Budapest, Linz and Koln, his new cello concerto Folktales commissioned by the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Together with cellist and composer Enrico Melozzi he promoted the project 100 VIOLONCELLI created at the Teatro Valle Occupied in Rome. Musicians from all age, formation, got together for 3 days and 3 nights of cello music, from baroque going through rock music to contemporary music written "during the concerts" there were no limits. The project was repeated in 2013 and in 2014 it took place in Milan at the Teatro delle Arti. In 2013 he also was the Maetro Concertatore of the project "La Notte della Taranta" a festival of traditional popular music from the Salento (region of Apulia) that climax with a big concert with an audience of more than 130 000 persons. This summer he will repeat the experience. Among the last albums are "Neapolitan Cello Concertos" for Glossa and "Caravaggio" for Egea. The prestigious Chicago Symphony Orchestra commissioned a new double cello concerto for himself and Yo-Yo Ma, the premiere took place at Symphony Hall in Chicago in February 2014. Sollima teaches at the Romanini Foundation in Brescia and at the Accademia of Santa Cecilia in Rome where he was appointed Member of the Academy, the highest  honour in Italy for a musician. He plays a cello by Francesco Ruggeri (Cremona, 1679).