PAOLOAOLO
PEGORARO
Experiences
Paolo Pegoraro is one of the most formative characters in my life. His generosity, patience, sincere openness and kindness of spirit are all qualities lacking in contemporary life; so when I write that he inspires me, know that this doesn’t cover it. He is what a mentor must be - someone who encourages one to be a better pupil, a better teacher, a better human. He also happens to be, without exaggeration, one of the best musical guides around; a constant student, compulsively curious, and one of the very few who are able to understand what it means to go beyond the guitar.
Sean Shibe (Scotland)
Paolo Pegoraro has an infinite passion for teaching. His lessons are precious not only for the focus on the musical details and the clearness of the ideas: Paolo Pegoraro is able to convey emotions to the students during his teaching and this is a very rare gift.
Andrea De Vitis (Italy)
As a teenager, I understood that the guitar was what I wanted to have every day for the rest of my life. It was like a kind of love at first sight.
I have been through many teachers, rehearsals, concerts, stages and one comes to take it as part of a routine, in which at a moment there are no more surprises.
I was not really right, because some time ago I was able to meet Paolo Pegoraro: a person totally passionate about teaching, detailed, with an incredible love for music. Something I really like in his teaching is the total coherence in what he says and what he does and, he knows perfectly what the student needs at every moment. I have complete confidence in his method, his technique and his sensitivity.
Beyond every positive characteristic that one can highlight about this incredible teacher, I believe that the most important thing above all is that he is a great person, with extreme intelligence and a great heart. Paolo Pegoraro was undoubtedly a person who was once again a surprise in my musical life and who made me fall in love with music again.
Max Balanowsky (Argentina)
Paolo Pegoraro was a fundamental meeting for me in my path as an artist and musician. A great Maestro, generous in giving all his knowledge to his students, always enthusiastic and a true mentor and guide for many generations of guitarists. I owe a lot to Maestro Pegoraro and I will always be very grateful to him for being the musician I am today.
Gian Marco Ciampa (Italy)
The first time I met Paolo I knew immediately I wanted to study with him, get to know him as a person and as an artist. His humbleness and sensibility was and will always be truly inspiring to me.
His lessons were much more that the seek for mastering the guitar, more than musical journeys to find a meaningful interpretation, more than immense loads of knowledge to try to process in those long hours lessons, which seemed like just a few minutes. All this but with the simplicity of a conversation between two people. Sometimes we just sat and listened to music together and that was pure joy - listening to music with someone who understands it like you do. Those moments I keep very dearly in my memory.
He made me realize what kind of musician I wanted to be and was always very generous with his words. I always felt accompanied by him in all matters: the choice of the repertoire, the chance to play with good instruments, which projects to embrace. It's incredible to see the effort he puts into every single student. He is the kind of teacher I strive to be.
I will be eternally grateful for having the luck to meet him and have him as my professor...
André Ferreira (Portugal)
I had the joy and the privilege of studying my Master of Arts in guitar performance with my dear maestro Paolo Pegoraro at the Kunstuniversität Graz from the winter semester 2011 to the summer semester 2013. He has not only a rich cultural knowledge but also an almost unbelievable expertise in the guitar repertoire. But his approach to music is not only intellectual, because he helps the student to create special emotional moments for an exciting and moving playing. The interpretation of the work that he wants to get from his students is very clear in his mind and he always encourages their pupils to reach that vision. His love to detail can be experienced through his demand for an accurate articulation, an adequate dynamic and a convincing timbre everytime. Maestro Pegoraro is a passionate and engaged guitar teacher who inspires you to jump over your own shadow and tries to get the best out of each of his students. I learned a lot with him in those 2 beautiful years in Graz and I'm still learning and assimilating some of his teachings... Grazie mille per tutto, Paolo!
Carlos Alberto Castro (Costa Rica)
Studying with Paolo Pegoraro in Pordenone was a so full experience that now, after some years, I’m representing it like a match with a specific part of my life. I think it’s that because in his lessons, music, professionality, pedagogy, fun, study, empathy, adrenaline and so on were so integrated that they’re not easily and completely distinguishable also today.
Personally, the most important thing I learned is that you can look for yourself trying to communicate with others, with guitar or not.
Emiliano Gentili (Italy)
Paolo Pegoraro transmit a profound musical thought during his extraordinary guitar lessons! His depth, elegance, presence, seriousness, expressiveness or in short, everything that is enough to move and excite have profoundly influenced my way of playing: the sense of legate, phrasing and the most suitable way of touching the strings to obtain the best sound possible on the instrument. He's for sure a constant point of reference for me.
Pier Andrea Capoccia (Italy)
My years at the Segovia Guitar Academy with Paolo were certainly some of the most enriching periods of my life.
Paolo made each lesson a unique experience, bringing up reading materials, recordings of other pieces related to the repertoire, lectures, art work. His way of communicating was gentle, empathetic but yet honest, which made it easy for me to absorb his knowledge. Anyone studying with him can consider themselves very fortunate.
Daniela Rossi (Argentina)
Having lesson with Paolo Pegoraro is everytime an unique experience. You can notice that his fine taste for musical beauty and his experience of years of study and work converge perfectly in his teaching. At the end of each lesson I glimpsed the unexplored horizons on which I could still work, without upsetting my musical personality. Really happy that there are teachers like him!
Carlo Curatolo (Italy)
In my opinion, to be a musician regardless of the instrument you play it's a combination of knowledge, intelligence, intuition, musicality, sensibility, culture, deep respect towards the composer, style and music in general and the ability to transmit everything mentioned above to the audience and students systematically, with argumentation based on knowledge, using as references great musicians again regardless of the instrument they play. When you add to that a subtle approach, ability to detect exact problems that students have and then finding a way to give them a tool to resolve those problems speaking in a musical language which they understand depending on a level they reached, motivating them to explore this beautifull world of music with your own enthusiasm and love for music with a goal to help them being the best they can be. That, for me, means to be a good musician whether you choose to be a soloist, a teacher, or both. I'm really thankfull that I had a opportunity to study and spend three years with this man. (from a Facebook post)
Working with Paolo for a few years helped me by forging and let me understand better the musician I am today. He opened new worlds to me by giving the right answers but most of all by asking the right questions at the right time!
Flavio Nati (Italy)
I met professor Pegoraro purely by luck, without knowing I would be pursuing my Masters degree with him.
Since the first time I worked with him, I realized that he would be an amazing person to study with, not only by all the expert knowledge he has as a musician, but also by the way he can communicate that to the students.
The best way I can try to describe my experience with professor Pegoraro is to say that we worked firstly about music, only then about guitar playing. Although this might sound very simple and trivial, I find it something rare to find and very difficult to be achieved. Nevertheless, Pegoraro does it in a sublime way. Every lesson was a joy for me, and no matter how hard the work we were doing, I always felt I had an outstanding musician and human being there to help me develop the best of myself. I will always recommend his name for everyone looking to become a better musician, and I will always be thankful for everything he shared with me.
Francisco Morais Franco (Portugal)
To study with Maestro Paolo Pegoraro was a true privilege to me. I can surely say these years were the most influential ones in my music education. The lessons were always extremely inspiring and challenging at the same time.
As Hegel wrote: “For in art we have to do not with any agreeable or useful child’s play, but… an unfolding of the truth.” (Aesthetics III)
I’ve learnt never to take a compromise when it is about creating art. His way of teaching always respects the consecutive steps of feeling, understanding, and creating emotions trough music. He always made me search in each piece, phrase, or even in the tiniest moments something greater. I was always encouraged to go beyond the score and explore deeper meanings. I’ve always benefited from his wide knowledge, culture, and passion.
He made me very keen to look for the desired perfection in every aspect and single detail. But he never missed to advert at the same time, the larger narratives. And this synthesis gives us a meaningful reading of a piece. Synthesis, as the larger formal structures in music are retrospectively created -after listening - in our memory, but as performers, we always must know what we are going to tell.
But the most important thing I’ve learnt from him, was the ability to feel, understand and fulfil my own ideas and reflect to them regarding the interpretation of any piece of music. Probably this is the most important skill, what a musician should have. I’ve learnt how to respect the composers’ intentions and at the same time find my personal voice in every piece. Being free in the music but always feeling, how far I can go before I am running into the barriers of good taste. This freedom gives us some floating like character. Something very hard to describe with words.
I will always be very grateful for the years; I was lucky to spend as his pupil. And I will always try to keep his great advice he has given me through the years and I will try to keep unfolding the truth.
Zsombor Sidoo (Hungary)
Paolo Pegoraro, has been and is for me one of the most important, positive and decisive people I have met in my life. It has made me evolve in the best way in the human, musical, guitar, cultural and pedagogical field. He is an altruistic, charismatic, affable, rational, intuitive and cultivated man, who knows how to get the best out of each student, understanding very well their strengths and weaknesses. With him, you work in a very constructive and intelligent way. It has helped me a lot so that I can work and make my students work the guitar with more confidence, humility, demand and pleasure. He himself, like his disciples, make the instrument sing and sound in a very natural, expressive way, with good taste, and security. He makes the body and the ear in perfect harmony with the guitar. This is also so that each of us can play and enjoy the magic of the sound of our instrument with our own personality and creativity. It teaches us to have a great respect for the instrument and its timbre, for the composer, the disciple and the public.
Thank you very much Paolo!
Albert Pia (Andorra)
I remember the pure joy I felt when I entered the class of Paolo. It was one of the most special feelings of happiness for me. The excitement, curiosity and gratefulness I felt to work with such a big personality in the guitar world was huge. The following years of working with him surpassed my expectations and much more. Paolo is a very special and unique musician and a teacher. His huge knowledge of music, combined with his unique and deep sensibility for music, always left me amazed on the lessons – very often I found myself observing him with much respect and admiration while he teached. From the first lessons it was very clear to me that this person has a special connection with music and that he is living his life purely through music. There are few lessons I remember strongly: as a young musician, I often tended to come on a lesson with an idea about the piece, only for him to show me the world behind the piece that I didn’t even realize is there. I remember in these moments I truly understood what the truth of music is and what it means to be a musician. So often he would connect music with other form of arts, guiding us with different materials, encouraged us to listen to great musicians in order to expand our knowledge and understanding of music. I will forever be grateful for the knowledge and special moments he gave me throughout the years, but also cherish the relationship we had and cherish that I can call him a friend.
Nikica Polegubic (Croatia)
I have been working with Paolo for 5 years now and during that time I got to know him as a sensitive, intellectual musician as well as a wise and empathetic pedagogue. As a result of Paolo’s guidance I started to understand the music in its natural, unpretentious beauty a bit deeper every time we met.
His teachings always aim to reveal the stylistic, harmonic and formal essence of the composition which makes working on each piece an exciting journey. It starts invariably with trying to understand the “meaning” of the work and the approach necessary to reach its true colors. It then continues with applying sensitivity and care while trying to shape every phrase in the most pure way possible. I have never met another person who searches for the truth and beauty in the music in such a humble and uncompromising way.
Another great gift that Paolo possesses is the ability to deeply and precisely define the strengths and weaknesses of his students and using this knowledge to tirelessly help us wisely navigate through our artistic choices.
I will forever feel lucky and grateful to have crossed paths with such a unique person that quickly became my mentor.
Marcin Kuzniar (Poland)
Maestro Paolo Pegoraro is the most influential figure in my life! He taught me about the deeper meaning behind Music and provided me with the powerful knowledge of his vast professional experience, and all this in his desire to see me succeed. Paolo made me find my confidence and provoked me to widen my horizons in music and beyond! Paolo, we achieved a lot together and I owe you my immense gratitude for your dedication, commitment and strong support to me and in general, to your noble educational mission! Thank you for your impeccable musical taste, unconditional honesty, amazing discussions, and all the insightful information you shared with me throughout these wonderful six years and, I hope, also in the future!
George Dimitrov (Bulgaria)
Being able to take classes with Paolo Pegoraro has been the greatest opportunity I've had in my career so far. Paolo has been the teacher who has taught me, with great patience and dedication, a huge amount of musical aspects to apply when playing. The aspect that has instilled in me the most in our classes has always been to try to find beauty when playing.
He is a teacher who is open and flexible to the student's ideas and he has always guided me to find the best musical solution in the works, giving me great confidence when playing. His pedagogy makes it easy for him to convey to the student in a clear and practical way the concepts he wants to teach.
The classes with Paolo Pegoraro are really a music lesson, in which he talks to me about concepts of musical language and not so much about aspects that lock us up to the six strings.
For me, as a Central American guitarist, it is a true privilege every class I have with Paolo and I will always be very grateful to him for all the help he has given me in trying to create a complete artist in myself.
Alvaro Miranda (Costa Rica)
