La Fiammata – Under the Spire Music Festival

Praised for their “dizzying musicality” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), Canadian piano duo La Fiammata are the Second Prize winners, the Henle Urtext Prize winners and the youngest piano duo finalists of the 70th ARD International Music Competition. Comprised of pianists Linda Ruan and Charissa Vandikas, La Fiammata has quickly emerged as one of the most promising young duos in the world, garnering top prizes at the 2021 Lancaster International Chamber Music Competition, the 2019 Suzana Szörenyi International Piano Duo Competition, and at the 2018 Northwest International Piano Ensemble Competition. As the Grand Prix Winners of the Canadian Music Competition, La Fiammata made its orchestral debut with Orchestre de la
Francophonie and conductor Nicolas Ellis in 2017. Since then, they have performed with orchestras in Europe and North America, and have been featured on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, BR24 Rundschau (Bavarian Radio), Art Channel Romania, and EnjoyTV Romania.

The duo was formed in Toronto where they were both full scholarship students of The Glenn Gould School. During this time, they primarily worked with James Anagnoson of the renowned Anagnoson & Kinton Duo. They have also received coachings from Anagnoson & Kinton Duo, Emanuel Ax, Hung-Kuan Chen, Michael Esch and John O’Conor. Currently, Ms. Ruan studies at the Tianjin Juilliard School with Dr. Xiaohan Wang and Ms. Vandikas at the University of Montréal with Jean Saulnier and Charles Richard-Hamelin.

La Fiammata was selected as the 2023/24 Pan-Canadian Tour artists, a partnership between Debut Atlantic, Prairie Debut, and Jeunesses Musicales Canada.