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We are pleased to announce that on March 15th the television channel ARTE will be broadcasting the musical docu-film by Georg Brintrup Palestrina princeps musicae with Flavio Colusso and his Ensemble Seicentonovecento and Cappella Musicale di San Giacomo who will be performing live in sound and vision more than forty minutes of sacred and secular music by the great polyphonic composer of the Renaissance.

The musical side of the production is undertaken by Musicaimmagine, who are also the editors of the DVD that is soon to be published, with the scientific consultancy of the musicologist Johann Herczog: the Film had a highly successful first showing last November 11th at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

Silvia De Palma
MUSICAIMMAGINE
via del Corso, 494/a
Roma (00186), Italy
ph. +39.328.6294500
e-mail: musicaimmagine@tiscali.it

Ensemble Seicentonovecento

«The work of the Ensemble Seicentonovecento is of great importance to the musical life of Italy.
Not only are the performances of the music they choose of a high standard, but they also often produce surprising results» H.C. Robbins Landon, 1993.

Founded and directed by Flavio Colusso, it is one of the most original vocal and instrumental groups on the international horizon and has been involved for more than twenty years in the performance of unpublished works of the past and premieres of music of today.

Since 2002 the Ensemble has been resident at the Villa Lante on the Janiculum, at the Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, where it runs its cycle “L’Orecchio di Giano: Dialogues between ancient and modern music”; in this evocative space its artists have found their ideal home: there they meet with illustrious guests and composers to create a kind of laboratory where they can experiment and formulate new ideas and work their musical alchemy.

Amongst their concerts, theatrical productions and recordings (over 50 CDs for EMI, MR Classics, Bongiovanni, M10-France) realized with the collaboration of famous soloists such as Nina Beilina, José Carreras, Mariella Devia, Cecilia Gasdia, Patrizia Pace, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Pietro Spagnoli, Vito Paternoster, Sandro Verzari, can be noted Musiche per il castrato Farinelli recorded with the sopranista Aris Christofellis for EMI, the premiere recordings of Abbatini, Anfossi, Archadelt, Cherubini, Haendel, Mascagni, Mozart, Pergolesi, Perti, Torelli, Vaccaj, Vivaldi, and many others.

They are dedicated to the study, discovery and performance of the works of Giacomo Carissimi whose complete Oratori have been recorded in collaboration with the RAI, the Académie de France and numerous European partners as part of the multimedia project “Giacomo Carissimi Master of Musical Europe” under the patronage of the President of the Italian Republic.

Other productions include : for the Teatro San Carlo of Naples the first performance of the imposing “Musiche per le Quarant’hore” by the 15th Century Padre Raimo; to mark the 90 years of the “Alessandro Scarlatti” Association of Naples the staged performance of Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo by Emilio De’ Cavalieri; the musical film by Georg Brintrup on Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, produced for the German television channel ZDF and the European channel ARTE.

The Ensemble has often performed under such directors as Franco Caracciolo, Carlo Franci, Marcello Panni, Carlos Piantini, François Polgar, Viecoslav Sutej, Alberto Zedda.

Flavio Colusso

«The special form of creativity one finds in Flavio Colusso is all contained in this philosophy of art, seen as a form of creation and re-creation in which the archaic and the modern meet in a moving synthesis of human existence»
Pupi Avati, 2004

For many years under the centrifugal and centripetal sign of the Ensemble Seicentonovecento, Flavio Colusso has been involved in the “revisitation” of the past: recreating and dreaming of the future. He was a student of composers Domenico Guàccero and F. Evangelisti and did further specialisation in past performing practice with Andreina von Ramm.

His compositions are performed, broadcast on Radio and Television in many countries of the world and published on CD and video. Amongst them may be noted Amarilli: Il Primo Libro dei Madrigali illustrati; the Suite from the ballet Dante-strasse; “Sidereus Nuncius”, inspired by Galileo Galilei; the Opera-pastiche L’impresario delle Isole Canarie, ovvero la moda del teatro; the “performance” Vanitas, ou les Quatre Saisons de Poussin; the musical fable La viola scarlatta; the lyric scene Recondita armonia di “bellezze diverse”.

Among his compositions of sacred music we may recall “Esercizi Spirituali Concertati” (Peccavimus Domine; Stabat Mater; Flamma; Il “Castello” interiore; Le ultime sette parore di Nostro Signore sulla croce; NuN); the polychoral pages Tu es Petrus dedicated to Pope John Paul II during the Jubilee of 2000 and performed in his presence in Piazza San Pietro in the Vatican; the Missa de Tempore in Aevum, performed by José Carreras; the oratorio Humilitas; the Missa Sancti Jacobi “super Gracias”, for the Compostella Jubilee of 2004; the Missa Sancti Andreae Avellino, for the IV centenary of the Theatine Saint; the oratorio Il Sangue, il Nome, la Speranza for the IV Centenary of the Real Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro in Naples; theTe Deum for the Puccini year of 2008.

He is the author and director of numerous productions in which music, theatre and dance are blended in a timeless experience of shared imagination.

He is the principal conductor of the Ensemble Seicentonovecento with which, over a period of more than twenty years, he has been responsible for many first performances of opera, concert works and premiere recordings.

In addition he has performed many rare and unpublished works of the past such as, recently the Oratorio di Sant’Agata by Antonio Draghi – the subject of a vast project to rediscover his Oratorios in collaboration with the Comune of Rimini, the Austrian Embassy and the city of Vienna – and he has directed and produced la Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo by E. De’ Cavalieri to mark the 90 years of the “A. Scarlatti” Association of Naples.

He is the Maestro di Cappella of the Basilica of San Giacomo in Augusta in Rome – which numbered Alessandro Scarlatti as one of its most illustrious maestri – and of the Order of Regular Theatine Clerics.

He has collaborated with the Grand Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona (Norma with Joan Sutherland), the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Teatro de La Maestranza in Seville, the Académie de France in Rome, the RAI, the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

He has taken part in International festivals such as Spoleto, Urbino, Granada, Barcellona, Tenerife, Bratislava, Monreale, “Magie Barocche”, Sagra Musicale Malatestiana and made his United States debut with the Messa di Gloria by Mascagni.

His extensive list of recordings (over 40 CDs for EMI, MR-Classics, Bongiovanni) include the Musiche per il castrato Farinelli recorded with the sopranista Aris Christofellis; l’Exultate jubilate by Mozart published with the patronage of the Salzburg Mozarteum and recorded with Mariella Devia; the premiere recordings of the Messa di Gloria by Mascagni; of Il Primo Libro di Madrigali d’Archadelt; of the oratorio San Petronio by Perti; of the opera La Maga Circe and of the oratorio La nascita del Redentore by Anfossi; of Ottone in Villa by Vivaldi; the complete Oratori of Giacomo Carissimi.

He is the Artistic Director of Musicaimmagine, of the concert series at Villa Lante on the Janiculum “L’orecchio di Giano: dialoghi della antica & moderna musica”, of the Foundation “Le Colonne del Decumano”, of the series of books and recordings “Musica Theatina” (MR / LIM www.lim.it ), of the Festival “Venite Pastores” ( www.venitepastores.net ), of the “Feste Musicali Jacopee”.