History of Italian Opera - Performance Lectures

Hello everybody!

Spring is here and I can't wait to do the first of the performance lectures I'm going to do in Ashley church about History of Italian Opera!
I will speak about birth and spreading of Italian Opera all around the world, from the 17th to the 20th century,  with lots of musical examples and, at the end of each meeting, a live performance with my good friend Cedric Ghevaert at the piano!
The first meeting is scheduled for Thursday 16th May at 7 pm. We look forward to meeting you there!

Newmarket Music Box

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Concert in Aldeburgh // Performance Lectures in Ashley

Good morning everybody!

In the last ten days, I had the great privilege to join some wonderful colleagues, the Fairhaven Singers and the East Anglia Chamber Orchestra, under the baton of Ralph Woodward, to sing Beethoven Mass in C at The Apex in Bury St Edmunds and, last Saturday, at the Trinity College Chapel in Cambridge. It was an amazing experience - especially to sing in Trinity College, to be in this place out of the time, where so much of the cultural history of the past centuries has been made, to look up from the score in my hands and see the long aisle and the magnificent organ... wow! These are the times when I feel particularly lucky to do this job!

Please, visit the Fairhaven Singers site or their Facebook page and look out for their next performance!

The month of April will be relatively calm, but then in May some exciting events are planned: first of all, on Thursday the 16th at 7 pm at the Ashley church, there will be the first of four Performance Lectures on the History of Italian Opera:

Then, on Saturday 25th at 7 pm at the church of St Peter and St Paul in Aldeburgh, I will perform with pianist Jane van Tilborg two Song cycles, two real masterpieces: Schumann Dichterliebe and Vaughan Williams Songs of Travel:

 I look forward to meeting you there!

Concerts with Fairhaven Singers

Hello everybody,

I'm very happy to announce I will be singing in two concerts with the Fairhaven Singers, a wonderful Cambridge Choir conducted by Ralph Woodward.
I will join the choir and the soloists Eleanor Cramer, Bridget Hardy and Richard Latham to sing Beethoven's Mass in C, then the East Anglia Chamber Orchestra will perform Mozart's Symphony n. 35. Finally, the Fairhaven Singers will perform "Sappho Sings" by Jonathan Dove, a new piece written especially for them.

We will wait for you on Saturday 23rd March at the Apex Theatre in Bury St Edmunds and on Saturday 30th March at the Trinity College Chapel in Cambridge!
http://www.fairhavensingers.org.uk/2019/03/23/beethoven-mozart-and-dove-bury/

Before this engagement, I will go back to my hometown in Italy for a concert with Silvia Regazzo and Michele Bravin. Very nice programme and good friends... I'm expecting some fun!

See you soon!

Concert in Lowestoft

Hi everybody!

I got back a few days ago after the concert in Wales, then this week I sang in Newmarket for the Voluntary Network Benefit Concert (it was a real pleasure sharing the stage with pianist Ralph Woodward!) - both the events were a big success!
Now I am ready to join again my friend Stephanie Lewis for a new event in Lowestoft, Suffolk, her birthplace!

Lowestoft is also the birthplace of one of the greatest British composer, Benjamin Britten, and his music will be performed in the first part of our concert. With Michele Bravin, who is coming from Italy to play the piano with us on Sunday 3rd March at the Trinity Methodist Church, we will sing a selection of Folksongs arrangements, of Michelangelo's Sonnets and Cabaret Songs, along with the wonderful and moving Abraham and Isaac, the second Canticle for mezzo, tenor and piano.
In the second part, the audience will listen to some Italian and French Opera arias and duets, by Rossini, Puccini, Mascagni, Saint-Saëns, Bizet.

I look forward to visiting Lowestoft and sing there with my friends!

Concert in Wales!

I am very happy to be invited again by my friend Stephanie Lewis to sing with her in Pennal, the nice little village in the Snowdonia National Park, Wales, where she lives!

On Sunday 10th February we will sing a lot of beautiful pieces from Operas written for the San Carlo Opera House in Naples, or which plot is set in Naples: Orfeo ed Euridice, Un Ballo in Maschera, Così Fan Tutte, Maristella... and in the second part there will be some of the most well-known and beautiful Neapolitan songs!

I look forward to visiting again beautiful Wales and see my friends!

Voluntary Network Charity Concert

Hi everybody!

I am very happy to announce a new concert: I've been asked by the wonderful people at Voluntary Network in Newmarket to join a Charity Event in February!
I will sing some opera arias with the great pianist Ralph Woodward, conductor of the "Fairhaven Singers". There will be also the "Acoustic Duo" from Bury St Edmunds, the Burwell Community Choir and the "South Lee School Choir". Ben Cox will read his poems and then refreshments and a Raffle!

We look forward to seeing you at Our Lady Immaculate & St Etheldreda Catholic Church in Newmarket on Wednesday the 13th of February at 7.30 pm.

Back to the UK - Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody!

I hope you had a wonderful time during these last festive weeks, enjoyed the company of your families and had a good start of the New Year!

I am finally back home in Newmarket, after some weeks with my family in Italy. I was there for some holidays, but I found some time to meet my friend Riccardo Pes, a great cellist who graduated last year at the Royal College of Music in London, to record a piece written especially for us by the composer Battista Pradal. Riccardo and I both studied composition with Battista and we are always very happy to perform his music!
Pieces for voice and cello are not so common - actually, they're almost inexistent - but as we wanted to do something together, we asked Battista for some help. I introduced Battista to the poetry by Anthony Howell, a great poet who lives in London, and he chose to set to music the beautiful poem "The Forbidden Rose". After this, Battista promised us to write other songs and we are looking forward to discovering and performing them!
You can listen to "The Forbidden Rose" on YouTube here, and have a glance "behind the scenes" here. I hope you will enjoy the song!

Here we are, recording the song in my hometown in Italy:

If you want to know better Riccardo Pes, please visit his site, or find him on Facebook or Twitter.
You can find out more about Battista Pradal here and on Twitter.
As to Anthony Howell, here is his blog.

See you soon with some news about concerts in Suffolk and in Wales!

Alessandro

Hi everybody!

I had a wonderful time in Italy singing in the beautiful Auditorium "Pollini" in Padua with my great colleagues and friends Silvia Regazzo and Alberto Miodini! It's always an incomparable pleasure to do music with them - and the program we did was breathtaking: Mahler Lieder!

A few days after this, I sang in Ashley church with Cedric Ghevaert. A lovely Christmas concert during the Christmas Trees Festival: it was really heartwarming to perform in the church filled with such a warm audience!
A big thanks to Cedric, his wife Marloes who joined us to sing "Panis Angelicus", Shelley and everyone who helped to organise the concert!

In a few days, I'll be back home in Italy to spend Christmas holidays with family and friends.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!
See you in 2019!

Alessandro

Christmas Concert in Ashley

Hi there,

here we are, with finally a concert in the UK!

I will have the great pleasure to sing again with Cedric Ghevaert at the piano on Sunday 1st December at 7 pm at the St. Mary's Church in Ashley, CB8 9DU.
We will perform some Italian music by Donizetti, Puccini and Tosti, some sacred songs and, of course, some carols!

The concert will take place during the Ashley Christmas Tree & Flower Festival, so come along to enjoy some beautiful music, have a look at the trees exposition and drink with us a cup of tea in the intermission!

Upcoming Concerts in Belgium and Italy

Hi everybody!

I'm ready to leave for Belgium, where I will sing next Sunday with organist Ferruccio Bartoletti.

We will perform in the St. Martin Church in Kontich, a town at the gates of Antwerpen.
The church's oldest parts date back to the XI century and there is, of course, a wonderful organ:

Then, at the end of November, I'll be back in Italy to join my dear friends Silvia Regazzo and Alberto Miodini to perform again "Das Lied von der Erde", one of the greatest masterworks by Gustav Mahler.

We will perform in Padua, in the great concert season organised by "Amici della Musica", an important music Association which has been offering concerts to the city since 1952, inheriting the tradition of an older Association founded in 1920.

Stay tuned for some other news... and a concert in the UK!