© 2026 LUCILLA ROSE MARIOTTI. All Rights Reserved.
Biography
With a distinctive musical voice shaped by warmth, depth and elegance, violinist Lucilla Rose Mariotti Banwell brings a charismatic presence to the stage.
In November 2026, she will make her Royal Albert Hall debut, performing Bruch’s Violin Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra under the baton of Christopher Warren-Green.
Recently, she has had the honour of performing for Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Highgrove House and Gardens, during an event organised by the Italian Embassy in the UK.
In 2024, her musical journey took her across Australia as a soloist in Vivaldi Gala Night: Journey to Italy, with performances at Winthrop Hall in Perth, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre in Brisbane and the Sydney Opera House.
In 2023, Lucilla represented Italy at the European Festival of Soloists in Caracas, in an event organised by the EU Delegation in Venezuela in collaboration with El Sistema. During the festival she also taught young musicians before appearing as a soloist with the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar under Rodolfo Saglimbeni.
That same year brought an encounter with Maxim Vengerov at the Royal College of Music, where Lucilla performed with the RCM Chamber Orchestra in a live-streamed masterclass led by him. She later joined Vengerov at the Royal Albert Hall to perform Sarasate’s Navarra with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, as part of a concert celebrating 40 years of his career.
A turning point came in Vienna in 2023, when winning both First Prize and the Audience Award at the Violins&Soul Competition brought with it the two-year loan of a 1709 Antonio Stradivari from the Goh Family Collection. That instrument became the voice of her debut album, Lumière du Temps, recorded for Orchid Classics with pianist Alessio Enea.
In 2025, Lucilla was awarded Third Prize at the Bogotá International Violin Competition, performing with the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra in the final. Her earlier distinctions include the Absolute First Prize at the 59th Kocian International Violin Competition in the Czech Republic and the Daniele Gay Award. In 2019, she was awarded the Maura Giorgetti Scholarship after winning the Young Musicians Competition organised by the Filarmonica della Scala in Milan. Since 2026, she has also been an Emerging Artist with the Peace and Prosperity Trust UK.
Her life as a soloist and recitalist has taken her across Europe, the Americas and Australia. In the UK, she appeared as a soloist in the 2022 Battle Proms series at Blenheim Palace, Burghley House, Hatfield House and Highclere Castle. She has a particular interest in rarely performed repertoire. This has included Thomas Linley Jr.’s Violin Concerto in F major, which she performed at the English Music Festival with the London Mozart Players and presented in its Italian premiere. In January 2027, she will continue this exploration with a performance of George Dyson’s Violin Concerto in London.
As a recitalist, Lucilla has appeared at Wigmore Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Sale Apollinee of La Fenice in Venice, Palazzo Pitti in Florence and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Other appearances have included Giardini La Mortella in Ischia, supported by the William Walton Foundation, the Brera Museum in Milan and the Royal Palace of Gödöllő in Hungary, where she premiered works by Alfredo D’Ambrosio, a composer whose music would later become part of Lumière du Temps.
Chamber music has remained another important thread throughout her musical life. She has attended the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove and the Keshet Eilon Summer Mastercourse on scholarship. In 2024, she appeared at Wigmore Hall as first violin of the string sextet in Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. She is also a founding member of the Vaughan Williams Ensemble. Her performances have been heard on radio in several countries. She has appeared live on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune, and her performances have also been broadcast by Vatican Radio, Czech Radio and Venice Classic Radio. In 2025, she was featured on RAI Radio 3’s Suite – Magazine in its Next Gen series.
Alongside her performing career, Lucilla has continued her studies with the support of several scholarships. She is currently studying in the Solo Class at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover with Professor Krzysztof Węgrzyn. She previously completed an Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music in London with Professor Itzhak Rashkovsky, supported by a full scholarship as a 2023/24 Carne Trust Junior Fellow. She also earned her Master of Performance with distinction at the RCM, supported by the Anne & Brian Wadsworth Scholarship, the Help Musicians Ian Fleming Award and the Albert Cooper Music Charitable Trust, and was named a Boise Scholar in 2023.
Her studies have also taken her to the Stauffer Academy in Cremona and the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, where she studied with Salvatore Accardo. She attended the Václav Hudeček Academy in Luhačovice over several years, and in 2020 graduated summa cum laude with special distinction from the Bruno Maderna State Conservatory in Cesena, having studied privately with Marco Fornaciari from the age of eight.
Lucilla currently performs on a Giovanni Grancino violin made in Milan in 1690, generously on loan from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, where she is a scholarship holder. She is also supported through the Gerd Bucerius Scholarship.