Andrea Bonatta was born in Bolzano, Italy. Major influences in his musical development were studies with Paul Badura-Skoda in Vienna, Nikita Magaloff in Geneva, Stefan Askenase in Bonn and Wilhelm Kempff in Positano.
He has given concerts all around the world. Most recent recitals and appearances with orchestra include Rome, Berlin, Moscow, Prague, Shanghai, Beijing, Xiamen, Paris, Hanoi and Saigon. He has recorded on CD Brahms’ complete works for piano as well as several other CD’s dedicated to Liszt and Schubert, getting top critical reviews: Choc/Le Monde de la Musique; ffff/Telèrama, best CD of the year/Neue Musikzeitung. His book on Brahms’ piano work is considered a milestone in this field and has been translated into German.
Andrea Bonatta has been several years the Artistic Director and Chairman of the jury of the International “F. Busoni” Piano Competition, has created the “F. Busoni” International Piano Festival and has been the Vice President of the World Federation of International Music Competitions of Geneva.
Andrea Bonatta is now Artistic Adviser of the “Franz Liszt” Competition in Utrecht, Honorary Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory as well as founder and director of the Piano Academy-Eppan. He is often invited as a member of the jury at the most important international competitions, such as Liszt-Utrecht, Scriabin-Moscow, CSIPCC-Shenzhen, CIPC-Xiamen, SIMC-Seoul, Beethoven-Bonn, Géza Anda-Zurich, Van Cliburn-Texas, Rubinstein-Tel Aviv and many others. He has served as Chairman of the Jury at the Cleveland International Piano Competition.
He very much likes chamber music and has played as a duet with pianists such as Paul Badura-Skoda, Pavel Gililov and Valentin Gheorghiu or violinists like Domenico Nordio or Sergei Krylov. Andrea Bonatta gave masterclasses in Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Hannover, Cologne, Moscow, Vienna, New York, Boston and many others. He also teaches regularly at the Talent Music Master Courses in Brescia.
Since many years Bonatta performs Mozart Concertos conducting from the piano, which led him to face also the great symphonic repertoire. As a conductor he has worked among others with the Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico di Vicenza in Italy, the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra in China, the Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra and the KBS Symphony Orchestra in South Korea, the Filarmonica Banatul Timisoara in Romania, the Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra in Georgia, and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra in Vilnius. His orchestra transcription of Liszt Trauervorspiel und Marsch has been premièred in South America. In his symphonic repertoire the Symphonies of Johannes Brahms play a central role. The famous pianist and conductor Arie Vardi has said about him: indeed a natural born conductor with music flowing in the hands.