Pietro Spada

Spada married in 1967 and had a son, Marcantonio M. Spada, born in Rome in 1970.

Spada was appointed Guest Professor of piano at Florida State University in August 1966. The following year he joined the piano faculty of the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and later that of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. At every university he both taught and performed before deciding to return to Italy in 1970. Later on he taught at the Turin Conservatory, the Rome Conservatory and the historical Naples Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella. There he spent his longest period as a piano professor, intensely researching in one of the most important autograph manuscript collections of the world before deciding to leave teaching.

Spada recorded for the first time in 1960 and produced a vast amount of repertoire on CD, including a set of three discs in 1988 containing all of Ferruccio Busoni's Bach transcriptions. He was a Steinway Artist.

Spada began his study of the piano at the age of 12 under Vito Carnevali. A short time later he entered the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome to study under Tito Aprea completing his diploma in piano with highest honors in 1956. Subsequently he received coaching but no formal lessons from the Italian pianist and conductor Carlo Zecchi who became one of his closest friends. In addition he frequented lessons with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. Spada underwent composition courses with Vincenzo di Donato, Carlo Pinelli and Andrea Mascagni completing his studies at the Milan Conservatory with Giorgio Federico Ghedini.

Pietro Spada (29 July 1935 – 31 December 2022) was an Italian pianist and musicologist. He was particularly noted for his technically masterful and vivid interpretations of works by lesser-known composers and his recordings of the piano music of John Field are highly regarded.