Serenata Italiana is not only Raphaela Gromes’s homage to Italy, it is also the result of a voyage of discovery with her pianist Julian Riem. “What was particularly thrilling for us was to decode each composer’s musical language.” In consequence this recording is not least a welcome demonstration of the fact that, however much it may have been overshadowed by great opera composers, Italy can still offer us a whole series of magnificent trouvailles from the by no means infertile field of chamber music. The listener will discover quite unknown but marvelous pieces by Martucci, Busoni, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Casella. Ms. Gromes gained decisive musical insight in master classes by David Geringas, Wolfgang Boettcher, and Yo-Yo Ma. She has been a guest artist at festivals such as the Jungfrau Music Festival Interlaken, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Munich Opera Festival, the Marvao International Music Festival in Portugal, the Edinburgh International Festival and the Rheingau Music Festival. Among other awards, she won First Prize in the Richard Strauss Competition in 2012, First Prize at the International Concorso Fiorindo in Turin in 2013 as well as the 2016 German Music Competition Prize in the solo cello category. Pianist Julian Riem studied with Michael Schäfer at the Musikhochschule in his native Munich, with Michel Béroff at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris, and with Rudolf Buchbinder at the Musik-Akademie in Basel. He regularly appears as a soloist and chamber musician in Europe, Asia and the US. He plays in the Velit Quartet and the Munich Horn Trio, which won an Echo Klassik Award in 2012.