Dr. Andrea
Mozzato

Andrea Mozzato was born in Venice in 1969 and raised in an artistically and musically rich family. His father was a painter, his mother (born in Tirana) played the piano, and his uncles played violin and accordion. His grandmother from Apulia introduced him to the guitar and traditional songs from Apulia and Albania.

At age six, he started taking piano lessons and participated in a children’s drumming classes, wich perfomed at St. Mark’s Square. At nine, he began classical guitar lessons with Olivia Verini, and by twelve, he gave his solo guitar debut at the Church of San Zaccaria in Venice, performing works by The Who, Led Zeppelin, and others. He later explored fingerpicking through Maurizio Angeletti’s handbook.

While studying and working as a historian at institutions like Ca’ Foscari, Villa I Tatti, and Heidelberg University, he kept performing music. In 1991, he sold his electric guitars and focused fully on acoustic fingerstyle guitar, founding the trio Slow Circle and studying with major artists like Duck Baker, Franco Morone, and Ian Melrose.

In 1998, he met Tim Sparks, which deepened his interest in Mediterranean and Balkan traditions. In 2001, he founded the quartet Galere di Fiandra e di Siria, performing in Italy, Germany, France, Greece, and Albania, often with bassist Alvise Seggi. Inspired by Anouar Brahem, he began playing oud in 2003 and moved to Berlin in 2005.

Since then, he has performed with groups like Senlemen (tango/Azerbaijani), Alwan Ensemble (Arabic art music), Ljuti Hora (Balkan), Saranda (Gypsy), Dimitri Cantemir Ensemble (Turkish), and Al- Qantara (Baroque/Irish), often with singers like Vasiliki Alymara and Sandra Nahabian. As a soloist on the oud, he performs works by Bach, Mozart, Piazzolla, among others and jazz.