Davide Cabassi, born in Milan in 1976, began to play piano at the age of six. Graduating under Professor Edda Ponti at the Milan conservatory "Giuseppe Verdi", he was awarded his diploma with the highest possible grade, "cum laude".

At the age of thirteen he debuted with the RAI Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Delman, giving Shostakovich's second piano concerto in the Sala Verdi. He was invited back in the following season and played Prokofiev's first piano concerto; in 1993, he performed Liszt's first piano concerto. That same year, he played Schumann's piano concerto with the Munich Philharmonic .

Beginning in 1995, Cabassi studied at the International Piano Foundation "Theo Lieven" Cadenabbia, Lake Como, under its director William Grant Naboré. There, he received instruction from leading artists and teachers such as the late Karl-Ulrich Schnabel, Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, Fou T'song, Murray Perahia, Rosalyn Tureck, Charles Rosen, and others.

Cabassi began competing in and winning national and international competitions at an early age; among other awards, he won the Yamaha Music Foundation scholarship in 1990, the "Sergio Dragoni" prize, first place in the 1998 Paul Harris competition and the special jury award, the Primo Premio Assoluto in the "Sanremo Classico — Premio F. Alfano" international piano competition, and the 51^st "G. B. Viotti" international competition in Vercelli; in 2005, he was an awardee of the 12^th Van Cliburn piano competition.

Following his success at the Van Cliburn competition, the Association of Performing Art Managers (APAP) selected him to give a concert for the occasion of its 2006 annual assembly, a concert that took place in Carnegie Hall with more than 4,000 APAP members in the audience. He also toured through more than fifteen American states, performing with different orchestras and playing varied recital programmes.

Davide Cabassi already played at all the most important Italian music societies (Serate Musicali, Società dei Concerti, Società del Quartetto, Pomeriggi Musicali in Milan, G.A.M.O. in Florence) and performed also at the Brescia and Bergamo International Piano Festival.

He played in numerous concert halls abroad, including the Mozarteum Salzburg, the Philharmonie im Gasteig (Munich), and the Rachimaninov Hall (Moscow). Under conductors such as Gustav Kuhn, James Conlon, Asher Fish, Vladimir Delman and Johannes Wildner, and with orchestras including the Munich Philharmonic, the Russian Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, the RSO Milan, and the New Philharmonic Westfalen, he already toured Germany, the Netherlands, France, Russia, Portugal, and Japan; on an extended China tour, Cabassi performed works by Debussy, de Falla, Ravel, Bartók, and Stravinsky.

The artist also dedicates himself to chamber music, particularly contemporary Italian music, and has performed the world premieres or works by Danieli, Delli Pizzi, Ignelzi and Rosato. He also has a good number of recordings for radio and television for RAI Uno, RAI Tre, Filodiffusione, and others to his credit.

In 2006 he released a Solo-CD titled "Dancing with the orchestra" (BMG/Arte Nova Classics). In 2007/2008, Cabassi followed up with the Brahms Concerti and in 2011, the Schumann Concerto for Col Legno (with the Haydn Orchestra under Gustav Kuhn), and two recordings, Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and Debussy's "Estampes", for Allegro. In 2010 he became the first non-Cuban pianist to record Cervantes' "40 Danzas Cubanas".