THE ARTIST
David Russell
Recital, Sala dei Giganti, Saturday, 3th
David Russell returns to Festival Homenaje, after the great success of his and the masterclasses at Barco Teatr last year and will play right at the Sala dei Giganti in the where he played in 1970, when he was invited by the Centro Chitarristico Veneto at the beginning of his career. It is now not only a great honour for the Festival to feature his concert again, but also a moment of great emotion and memory for the city of Padua, as well as for the guitarist himself.
Grammy Award winner in 2005 for his CD “Aire Latino” in the category of best instrumental soloist in classical music, with an Honorary Doctorate in Music by the University of Arizona in Tucson in 2014 and inducted into the Guitar Foundation of America Hall of Fame in 2018, classical guitarist David Russell is world-renowned for his musical and artistic sensibility. He has received numerous and prestigious awards worldwide, of which we will only mention a few: he was nominated a member of the Royal Academy of Music of London in 1997; in 2003, he was awarded the honour of being made "adopted son" of Es Migjor, the city of Menorca where he grew up (which later named a street after him, "Avinguda David Russell"); in November 2003 he was awarded the Medal of Honour by the Conservatory of the Balearics; in 2005 the Vigo Auditorium was named after him and in 2009 he was named honorary member of "Amigos de la Guitarra", the oldest guitar society in Spain.
David Russell has released more than 17 solo albums.
He also started the “David Russell y Marìa Jesùs” NGO, providing support to developing countries (including by financing projects for water extraction and access to safe drinking water in Africa).
He is an active concert artist, appearing regularly in some of the world’s most prestigious venues (incuding New York, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Madrid, Toronto and Seoul) and holding popular masterclasses.
www.davidrussellguitar.com
Giacomo Susani + Leonora Armellini
Giacomo Susani
Born in Padua in 1995 and raised in a family that valued music, he has been based and conducting most of his artistic activity in London since 2014.
In the UK he won numerous awards and achieved recognitions and supports to his career. The most noteworthy include those received from the Julian Bream Trust and the City of Music Foundation.
Winner of 1st Prize at the London International Guitar Competition (London 2016 and), and 1st Prize at the Respighi Prize in Composition (New York 2022), his dual activity as guitarist and composer distinguishes him for an unique and versatile role in the music scene.
He pursues a busy performing career as a soloist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestra and he is regularly invited in Europe and US as a performer, teacher, lecturer and composer.
He recorded two solo albums for the label “Stradivarius”: Giacomo Susani plays Petrassi, Bach, Tansman, Weiss (2015) and Gebeth. Romantic music for Guitar. Mertz, Regondi (2018), which both received audience acclaim and critic recognition in important musical and guitar reviews (“Classical Guitar Magazine”, “BBC Music”, “Gendai Guitar”, “Il Fronimo”, “Amadeus”, “American Record Guide”).
He has been Artistic Director of Barco Teatro and “Homenaje” International Guitar Festival in Padua (IT).
He has been guitar teacher at the Junior Department of the Royal Academy of Music in London since 2019. He studied guitar in Italy with Stefano Grondona and in UK with Michael Lewin; he studied composition with Michele Brugnaro in Italy and with Stephen Goss in UK. He also had the privilege of working closely with Julian Bream for 4 years in a series of one-to-one meetings as part of The Julian Bream Trust Scholarship.
Since 2021 he has been admitted to the Music PhD at the University of Surrey (UK).
Leonora Armellini
Leonora Armellini (1992), daughter of art, approaches the study of the piano at the age of 4 with Laura Palmieri and graduates at the age of 12, obtaining full marks with honors and special mention. In 2005 he unanimously won the XXII Venice Prize, reserved for the best graduates of the Italian Conservatories, graduated with Sergio Perticaroli at the Accademia di S. Cecilia in Rome, at the age of 17 with honors and perfected with Lilya Zilberstein and Marian Mika and he graduated from the Incontri col Maestro Piano Academy in Imola with Boris Petrushansky (2018).
Among the numerous awards and acknowledgments for her artistic and human qualities, Leonora received in 2013 the "Galileo 2000 Pentagram d'gold" award from Zubin Mehta. In May 2013 the National Association of Music Critics decided to award the "XXXII Abbiati Prize", "Premo Piero Farulli", to the Trio formed by Leonora, Laura Marzadori and Ludovico Armellini (Piano, Violin and Cello).
She regularly holds concerts as a soloist and chamber musician in festivals and concert seasons in Italy and abroad.
Leonora is the protagonist of numerous recording projects; the latest releases are the “Piano Recital” DVD published by ContempoArs and a CD published by “Brilliant Classics”.
Dušan Bogdanović
Recital, Scuola della Carità, Tuesday, 6th
Dušan Bogdanović (born 1955) is a Serbian-born American composer and guitarist. He has explored musical languages which are reflected in his style today: a synthesis of classical, jazz, and ethnic music. As a soloist and in collaboration with other artists, he has toured extensively throughout Europe, Japan, and the U.S. He has taught at the University of Southern California, San Francisco Conservatory and the Geneva University of Music.
His performing and recording activities include work with chamber ensembles of diverse stylistic orientations: the Falla Guitar Trio, a harpsichord and guitar duo with Elaine Comparone, and jazz collaborations with Anthony Cox, Charlie Haden, James Newton, Milcho Leviev, Arto Tunçboyacıyan and others. Notably, he is a co-author with Sting on Prisms (Six Song by Sting) published by “Singidunum Music and Steerpike Overseas Limited”.
Dušan Bogdanović's recording credits include close to twenty albums (on Intuition, Doberman, Ess.a.y, M.A. Recordings, GSP and other labels), ranging from Bach Trio Sonatas to contemporary works. Over two hundred of his compositions are published by “Bèrben Editions” (Italy), “Doberman-Yppan” (Canada) and “Guitar Solo publications” (San Francisco).
His theoretical work includes polyrhythmic and polymetric studies, as well as a bilingual publication covering three-voice counterpoint, Renaissance improvisation for guitar (Bèrben) and Ex Ovo. (Doberman-Yppan).
He has also collaborated on multi-disciplinary projects involving music, psychology, philosophy, and fine arts.
Evangelina Mascardi
Recital, Barco Teatro, Wednesday 7th
Evangelina Mascardi is considered one of the most prominent lute players on the international scene. Born in Buenos Aires in 1977, she graduated in classical guitar and started her concert career as a highly gifted young soloist.
In 1997 she moved to Europe to study with Hopkinson Smith at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basel, Switzerland), where she obtained her “Solisten Diplom” in 2001.
During the last decade she collaborated regularly as a continuo-player with Jordi Savall (Hespèrion XXI), Marc Minkowsky (Les Musiciens du Louvre), Andrea Marcon (Venice Baroque Orchestra), Giovanni Antonini (Giardino Armonico), Chiara Banchini (415), Simon Rattle (Berliner Philarmoniker), tooking part in more than 30 recordings.
Nowadays, she confines her collaboration to Ensemble Zefiro (Alfredo Bernardini) and Monteverdi Choir (Sir John Eliot Gardiner), in order to mainly focus on solo lute repertoire.
Constantly praised by critics, she has performed recitals in a number of early music festivals.
Evangelina has 4 solo albums to her credit, two devoted to Johann Sebastian Bach and Sylvius Leopold Weiss (ORF-Alte Musik, Austria 2003 and 2009), one to refined and original theorbo solos by the Modena-born Bellerofonte Castaldi (Arcana 2011) and the latest recently devoted to the Belgian lutenist and composer Laurent de Saint-Luc (Musique en Wallonie 2018).
Evangelina teaches Lute at the ISSM ”Conservatorio A. Vivaldi" in Alessandria (Italy).
Since 2020 Evangelina is a member of the Directive Board of the Italian Lute Society.
Since 2020 Evangelina is a member of the Scientific Commette of the Convegno internazionale di chitarra (Milan) and since 2021 of the Directive Board of the Italian Lute Society.
Sean Shibe
One of the most versatile guitarists performing today, Sean Shibe’s innovative approach to his instrument has enhanced his reputation for having “one of the most discriminating ears in the business” (Gramophone). He was the first guitarist ever to be selected for BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme, to be awarded a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and, in 2018, to receive the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Young Artists. Additional accolades include the Royal Over-Seas League First Prize and Gold Medal (2011) and the 2015 YCAT International Auditions. He is the 2022 recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award.
2021 marked the release of Shibe’s latest album Camino recorded for “Pentatone” and featuring an introspective programme of French and Iberian music. The album has been named the recording of the month by “BBC Music Magazine” as well the recording of the week by “The Guardian”, “Presto Classical”, and “The Times” describing it as “one of the most compelling and touching recitals for the instrument Camino follows a string of successes recorded for “Delphian Records”. Shibe’s debut album Dreams and Fancies (2017) was named Editor’s Choice in “Gramophone” and nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Instrumental Award. The Gramophone Award-winning softLOUD (2018) was hailed as ‘spectacular’ (“Gramophone”) and ‘gripping’ (“The Guardian”), using both acoustic and electric guitar in repertoire ranging from Scottish lute manuscripts to electric guitar arrangements of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint. With the laconically titled Bach (2020), a chart-topping recording of Bach lute suites arranged for guitar, Shibe became the cover star of “Gramophone Magazine’s” June 2020 issue in which the disc was named Editor’s Choice. The recording earned glowing reviews from “The Times” and “The Scotsman”, with “Presto Classical” and “Europadisc” both naming it Disc of the Week and has received the Gramophone Award in the Instrumental Category.
Paul Galbraith
Recital, Scuola della Carità, Saturday 10th
An internationally renowned guitarist, the Scottish Paul Galbraith is one of the best instrumentalist on the contemporary scene, but above all a brilliant innovator of guitar and of its repertoire.
In 1982, at the age of 17, Paul Galbraith took part in the 1st Segovia International Guitar Competition in Kent, England; he was the youngest of 50 competitors from 14 countries. Paul was awarded silver medal by a Jury presided over by Segovia himself. “Paul is magnificent. He will be a great artist”, was Segovia’s comment to the press after the competition.
In the spring of 1984, Paul came across a more natural, comfortable and expressive way of playing the guitar: holding the guitar between the knees, sitting cross-legged on the floor. This enabled, for the first time, equal freedom of movement for both arms. Gradually this position evolved, and the instrument perfected to create the 8-string Brahms Guitar, featuring a resonance box resting on a cello-like end-pin, designed by Galbraith himself together with the English luthier David Rubio. This extraordinary innovation expanded both the limits of the instrument and the quality and breadth of its repertoire.
In 1994 Paul made his first recording on the new Brahms guitar, with an album entitled Introducing the Brahms Guitar, in which he plays Henze and transcriptions of works by Brahms, Grieg, Dowland and Bach, followed by many others dedicated to a repertoire of transcriptions of works by Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy.
In 1998 his recording of Bach's Sonatas and Complete Partitas was indicated for a Grammy Award and reached Billboard's top 10 sales rating in the classical charts soon afterwards.
Paul Galbraith has toured as soloist and soloist with orchestra throughout the USA, the UK, Switzerland and the European Union, China, South America, South Korea, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Australia and Canada.
Lorenzo Frignani
Conferenza, Barco Teatro, Tuesday 6th
Ha iniziato la sua carriera professionale nel 1986 e si occupa di costruzione e restauro di strumenti ad arco e strumenti a pizzico da oltre 30 anni.
Ha ricevuto numerosi premi e riconoscimenti per i suoi strumenti musicali in Italia e in tutto il mondo.
Oltre al suo lavoro di liutaio, egli è profondamente coinvolto in molti altri aspetti della comunità musicale internazionale. Ha formato molti allievi, oggi affermati liutai, quali Marcello Bellei, Federico Falaschi, Annette Stephany, Silvia Zanchi, Wataru Shinozaki, Yojiro Hamasaki, Barbara Briscik e altri. E 'stato membro di diverse giurie di concorsi di liuteria nazionali ed internazionali come Baveno, Pisogne e Sesto Fiorentino.
E' Presidente dell'Associazione ALI professionisti (Associazione Italiana Liutai professionisti).
Ha ideato e organizzato mostre di strumenti musicali a Parma, Finale Emilia, Medolla, Pieve di Cento, Spezzano e Roma (Biblioteca Casanatense). Così come all'estero, a Pechino, Losanna (Brillancourt - tre mesi di esposizione e il catalogo in due lingue ospite presso la sede mondiale Philip Morris) e Geigenbaumuseum Mittenwald (Germania) e Singapore.
Ha partecipato a mostre dedicate alla liuteria contemporanea in Austria, Corea del Sud e Cina.
Dal 1992 al 1998 ha ricevuto numerosi premi in concorsi nazionali ed internazionali quali Bagnacavallo e Baveno. Nel 2010 ha ricevuto il"Premio Spataffi" città di Gubbio. Nel 2011 il premio "Città di Fiuggi" come liutaio dell'anno. Nel 2016 il premio "Città di Alessandria" per la liuteria. Ha inoltre ricevuto il premio la "Bonissima" per le “Eccellenze” dalla città di Modena.
E' conservatore della chitarra Stradivari detta "Sabionari" conservata al Museo del violino di Cremona.
Collabora con le riviste “Guitart” e “Seicorde” e attualmente sta sviluppando nuove ricerche sulla conservazione e catalogazione di strumenti storici, svolgendo regolarmente la sua attività di liutaio nella città di Modena.
Stephen Goss
Conferenza, Barco Teatro, Wednesday 7th
The participation of the Welsh guitarist and composer Stephen Goss will add an international edge and state-of-the art research to the Festival.
Among other things, Stephen Goss composed many of the pieces performed in the Festival’s concerts. His music is played by the world’s major classical guitarists, who have also commissioned many works from him. These include David Russell, SoloDuo, Zoran Dukić, Aniello Desiderio, Miloš Karadaglić and Xuefei Yang (including chamber works with cellist Natalie Clein and tenor Ian Bostridge).
As a guitarist, he has worked with Takemitsu, Henze, Peter Maxwell Davies and Elliott Carter and has performed and recorded with several ensembles including the Tetra Guitar Quartet, as well as a soloist. Recent projects have included the legendary guitarist John Williams, who recorded and toured his “Guitar Concerto” (2012) with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 2014. Some of the world’s major orchestras have performed his works. He has released over 80 albums with more than a dozen record labels, including EMI, Decca, Telarc, Virgin Classics, Naxos and Deutsche Grammophon. His oeuvre includes large-scale orchestral compositions, choral works, chamber music and solo pieces.Stephen Goss is currently Professor of Composition and Director of the International Guitar Research Centre at the University of Surrey, UK, and a Professor of Guitar at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 2018 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, an honour limited to 300 living people.
He was born in Wales on February 2, 1964.
Michael Lewin
Masterclass, Barco Teatro, Tuesday 6th - Wednesday 7th
As guitarist and lutenist, Michael Lewin has performed with leading ensembles and been broadcast in the UK and abroad.
Michael has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Rambert, English National Opera and Royal Opera House among many others. In addition to solo concerts, he has played with chamber groups and orchestras at leading international festivals and the BBC Proms. He has also made a number of recordings, notably with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and collaborated with film composer Trevor Jones.
Michael’s arrangements for solo guitar have been featured on the top-selling albums by his former student Miloš Karadaglić for “Deutsche Grammophon/Mercury Classics”. Since becoming a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in 1977, Michael has devoted an increasing amount of time to educational work. His department has built a superb reputation, attracting students and visiting artists of the highest calibre. Success in prize competitions around the world and the strong and distinctive professional careers of Academy alumni further attest to the quality of his teaching.
Michael has given masterclasses at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, University of Bologna and Conservatoire Nationale Superieur de Musique et Danse of Paris; on summer courses at Scandiano and Siena in Italy; and at the Koblenz International Guitar Festival in Germany and the Campos do Jordao Festival in Brazil. Michael has examined at most of the main UK Conservatoires and he is on the Diploma Panel of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. He has also edited Trinity College of Music’s Guitar Grade and Diploma syllabus. In 1990, he co-founded the European Guitar Teachers’ Association UK and from 1999 to 2001 was its chairman, meanwhile also being vice-president of the International EGTA from 1996 to 2006. Extending his interest in helping young musicians at the start of their careers, Michael is honoured to be a Liveryman and Court Member of the Worshipful Company of Musicians and chairs the panel of the WCOM’s Ivor Mairants Guitar Award and the New Elizabethan Award, which he initiated for his year as Master in 2018-19. He has been a trustee of the Julian Bream Trust since its inception in 2009. Michael studied with Hector Quine at the Royal Academy of Music and in Spain with José Tomás.
Stefano Grondona
Conferenza, Barco Teatro, Saturday 10th
Stefano Grondona was born in Genoa (IT) in 1958. He studied with Sergio Notaro and Oscar Ghiglia, specializing with Julian Bream and Andrés Segovia, who mentioned him, in an interview in 1985, among his best students, together with John Williams, Alirio Díaz and Ghiglia.
His long activity as a performer and his recordings have allowed to be recognized himself as a guitarist internationally. Between the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 2000s, Grondona was invited to held various concerts on Torres guitars at the Museu de la Música in Barcelona (2001) and at the Palacio de la Guitarra in Ibaraki (2000, 2001) , as well as participating in various festivals in memory of the luthiers Antonio deTorres (Almeria 2005 and Cordoba 2007), Bouchet (Tokyo 1998) and Rubio (Cambridge 2001).
His musical activity has linked a strong interest in lutherie and the history of the guitar culminated in the publication of the book "La Chitarra di Liuteria-Masterpieces of Liuteria" (2001) and in a series of recordings on instruments. For several years Grondona has also dedicated himself to the figure of Miguel Llobet and to the interpretation of the musical work of the Catalan guitarist-composer, to re-evaluate its historical significance.
In 1999 he received various international awards for his record La Guitarra de Torres, including the "Golden Guitar" as "best CD of the year". In 2002 he got the same award for Lo Cant dels Aucells, while Respuesta won the prestigious Editor's Choice of the English magazine “Gramophone”.
In November 2005 Grondona received the prestigious IPECC Prize in Barcelona, which was awarded to him in recognition of his activity aimed at researching and disseminating Catalan culture and music. For cultural merits, he received in 2012 the title of "Cavaliere della Repubblica italiana” and in 2015 the honor of “Commendatore dell’Ordine del Merito della Repubblica Italiana”