Francesco Cascarano is a guitarist, a theorbo player and an interdisciplinary artist based in Hannover, Germany.
He was born in Mola di Bari, a small town in southern Italy. After his bachelor in classical guitar with Maestro Massimo Felici at the Conservatorio di Musica “Nino Rota” in Monopoli, he moved to Germany to attend the master program with Prof. Frank Bungarten at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover. In 2018, he achieved the postgraduate master in Parma at the Conservatorio “Arrigo Boito” and attended the summer course at the prestigious Accademia Chigiana di Siena with Maestro Oscar Ghiglia.
He also worked intensively on chamber music under the guidance of Giampaolo Bandini and performed the most significant repertoire of this genre in duo with violin, flute, accordion, voice and guitar. With the theorbo he is active as a solo and continuo player and he is currently studying baroque music and basso continuo at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen with Prof. Joachim Held.
Since 2017 he is part of the Mariposa Ensemble together with Aurelia Lampasiak (violin), Markus Korda (accordion) and Eike Ernst (percussion). In 2019 the ensemble released their first album Faggema published by the german label Hey!blau Records.
His interest for improvisation and musical research brought him to play and collaborate with international composers and musicians and promote the cooperation between different arts. In 2021 the TSAK!Kollektiv, a newly founded project between Mariposa Ensemble and the two contemporary circus artists Diego Salles and Jef Kinds, premiered their first performance The Beauty of Lightness founded by the ministry of culture of lower saxony.
Through his work as a soloist and chamber musician, he took part at many festivals and concerts in Europe and Africa.
Besides the concert activity he gave several workshops about music and free improvisation and he is currently teaching at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover and at the Gitarren Akademie Linden in Hannover.