Luigi Gaggero was born in Genoa in 1976.  The high point of his musical education was meeting with Andrea Pestalozza, who directed him towards a passionate study of 20th century music.  He studied cimbalom with Márta Fábián in Budapest, and percussion with Andrea Pestalozza in Genoa.  He then studied with Edgar Guggeis and Rainer Seegers at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin, where he received a Diploma and soloist Diploma with honors.  He has been twice the winner of the Hans Eisler-Preis for the interpretation of contemporary music.
Gaggero has performed as soloist and in chamber groups all over Europe (Royal Festival Hall in London, Berliner Festspiele, Ultraschall-Festival, Berlin Philharmonia, WDR Köln, NDR Hamburg, deSingel in Antwerp, Konserthuset in Goteborg, Venice and Salzburg Biennali, Musica-Strasbourg, Radio France, Fundaçao Gulbenkian in Lisboa) and in New York.  As a cimbalom player, he has performed with the following orchestras: Berliner Philharmoniker, Münchener Philharmoniker, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, SWR Freiburg and Frankfurt, Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester, Gürzenich-Orchester and WDR Köln, Orchestre du Théâtre, de La Monnaie in Brussels, Orchestra Mozart, Orchestra RAI di Torino, Orchestra del Maggio Fiorentino, Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice, Orchestra della Toscana, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, and Orquestra Sinfónica de la RTVE, with the following ensembles: Scharoun, MusikFabrik, Modern, Oriol, Resonanz, United Berlin, Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik, Contrechamps, Itinéraire, Accroche Note, Musiques Nouvelles, Spectra, Remix, Gageego and under the direction of: Claudio Abbado, Stefan Asbury, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Renbert de Leeuw, Peter Eötvös, Michael Gielen, Philippe Jordan, Michail Jurowski, Riccardo Muti, Kent Nagano, Kazushi Ono, Zoltán Peskó, Emilio Pomarico, Markus Poschner, Filip Rathé, Simon Rattle, Markus Stenz and Arturo Tamayo. 
As a soloist, he has performed with Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala di Milano, Sinfonieorchester des NDR Hamburg, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest Holland, Münchener Kammerorchester, Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin, Philharmonia Orchestra and with several other contemporary music ensembles. Luigi Gaggero has made several recordings (among them, a CD with all the works for cimbalom by Kurtág, Solbiati and Francesconi for the Italian Label Stradivarius).  He is constantly searching for new sound possibilities on the cimbalom through the use of new techniques, and through collaboration with composers such as Luca Antignani, Luca Francesconi, Stefano Gervasoni, Konstantia Gourzi, Erik Janson, Mauro Lanza, Carla Magnan, Alessandro Solbiati and Franck C. Yeznikian.
Luigi Gaggero is the only professor of cimbalom in Western Europe.  He teaches at the Strasbourg Conservatory.