The 2024 edition of the 'The Concerts of the Conservatory' will kick off on Friday, March 1st. This historic initiative of San Pietro a Majella will once again animate the Scarlatti Room, offering a schedule of 23 performances, all with free admission.
Rare works presented in their original form as well as contemporary reinterpretations and new compositions will define a diverse thematic profile, ranging from sacred music to electronic music, including tributes to Niccolò Jommelli, Giuseppe Martucci, and Ryūichi Sakamoto.
The performance scope will, in turn, be characterized by a broad instrumental horizon, thanks to a program that combines music for orchestra, piano, strings, and winds with repertoires for accordions, mandolins, and ancient music instruments. 'We have set up a rich program of interesting points, both in terms of compositions and performance practices. The numerous reading paths proposed by the exhibition materialize the desire to share with the city the breadth and plurality of our musical vision', declared the president of the Conservatory, Luigi Carbone.
For his part, the director Gaetano Panariello highlighted: 'The exhibition is the result of the teaching and research activity carried out daily in our classrooms. Enhanced by the collaboration of prestigious guests, the commitment of teachers and students will translate, once again, into a high-quality concert offer'.
After the inaugural event 'Violoncelliade!' curated by Luca Signorini, the month of March will be marked by the performance of the San Pietro a Majella Orchestra, which on Friday 8th will perform Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 and Koussevitzky's Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra, while the concert 'Four Centuries of Rarities for Wind Ensemble' will see its first performance on Friday, 15th. On Thursday 21st, the Ancient Music Day will be celebrated with the Baroque Orchestra of the Conservatory, while on Friday, March 22nd, pianist Simonetta Tancredi will remember Ryūichi Sakamoto with a tribute concert on the first anniversary of his death.
The month of April will open with the Eolian Trio, which on Friday, 5th, will play pieces for clarinet, cello, and piano, giving space to a type of formation rarely present in musical literature. Equally sought after will be the proposal at the center of 'Sacrum et Profanum', a concert that on Friday, April 19th, will see a Choir of White Voices and an accordion ensemble take the stage of the Scarlatti. On Monday, 29th, 'Mozart in Naples' will take place, an original project of musical philology born from the collaboration between the departments of ancient music of the Conservatories of Naples and Frosinone.
The first of the May shows will be Igor Stravinsky's 'Histoire du Soldat', which on Friday, 3rd, will see Peppe Servillo accompany, in the role of the reciting voice, the San Pietro a Majella Instrumental Ensemble. Rich in suggestions will be the concert on Tuesday, May 7th, which will compare the Neapolitan and Sicilian mandolin schools. On Friday, 10th, there will be the expected return of the Electroacoustic Orchestra Officine Arti Soniche (OEOAS), for another concert in the sign of participatory experimentation. Among other May appointments, to be noted is what promises to be a joyful musical marathon: on Friday, 24th, over a hundred saxophonists from conservatories and music high schools all over Italy will gather in the Scarlatti Room to perform under the direction of Francesco Salime.
Electronic music, computer graphics, and modern dance will be the elements that characterize 'Surreal', a show by Paolo Tortiglione that on Tuesday, 4th will kick off the June programming. 'Martucci returns home', on the other hand, is the emblematic title of the concert that on Friday, 14th will remember the figure of the composer who was a teacher and director of San Pietro a Majella. Under the direction of Leonardo Quadrini, the Conservatory's Orchestra and male choir will reproduce, for the first time in the city, the Gloria Mass 'made in the Royal College of Music in Naples 1871'. The spring programming of the exhibition will conclude on June 28th with 'Jommelli re/found', an event that will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the composer's death with a production realized within the framework of the high training project 'Officina San Pietro a Majella'. Of Jommelli, in fact, motets and chamber music will be performed in the transcriptions that the Conservatory students have elaborated by consulting the original manuscripts kept in the Institute's Library. An innovative multidisciplinary approach has allowed to decline this analytical phase in the form of a concert, returning to the present a significant segment of the Italian musical heritage.
All concerts will take place in the Scarlatti room of the San Pietro a Majella Conservatory, starting at 6:00 pm and with free admission until all seats are filled.