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Category: News

02 Dec

Art Songs + Works for Piano: Duo Vanini-Coni Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

One of the most memorable sessions of last summer’s Italian- Jewish Studies Conference in Camaldoli, Italy was a lecture and concert by the Duo Vanini-Coni (mezzosoprano Valentina Vanini and pianist Giuseppina Coni),  during which they focused on the art songs Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote during his early years in Florence. The Duo has recently released a two CD box set (Tactus), which features both these early art songs as well as works for solo piano of the same period, along with interesting and in depth liner notes by Professor Cesare Orselli. The project includes the premiere recordings of three songs: La sera fiesolana, based on Gabriele D’Annunzio’s celebrated poem;  La canzone della vita, with words by Mario’s elder brother Ugo Castelnuovo-Tedesco; and the brief cycle Il libro di Dolcina, set to poems by Laura Milani Comparetti, the mother of Elisa Milani, a childhood friend of Mario’s.  Valentina and Giuseppina kindly agreed to tell us about their experience studying and recording this music.
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17 Nov

An ambitious research project in Cagliari

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

I Grandi Dimenticati: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco [The Forgotten Greats: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco] began on 22 October 2023 at the Conservatory G.Pierluigi da Palestrina in Cagliari, Sardinia and will continue through 10 May 2024. The project, the largest commemoration of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music to date, includes 22 conferences and concerts that involve 22 professors and more than 100 students of the Conservatory, in addition to another 15 students from other parts of Europe. Two of the composer’s grandchildren, Diana and Greg, traveled to Cagliari to participate in the first week of events.
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07 Oct

Report from Cremona Musica 2023

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music was seen and heard at the 2023 edition of Cremona Musica, a three-day trade fair that combines business, music and culture. Held in Cremona, Italy, a city rich in musical history and especially renowned as a center of musical instrument manufacture, the fair is a meeting place for musicians, music teachers, publishers, instrument dealers, students, collectors and enthusiasts from Italy and around the world. In this article we share a few highlights.

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25 Aug
Italian Guitarist Andrea De Vitis interviewed on MarioCastelnuovoTedesco.com

Greeting Cards + Passacaglia: Andrea De Vitis Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Italian guitarist Andrea De Vitis has been lauded internationally for his concert performances and recordings, and he is also a renowned teacher. Until recently he was at the Conservatory in Avellino, Italy and starting this fall, he will be Professor of Guitar at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. He has recently added to his discography with recordings for the Naxos label of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s 21 Greeting Cards for Guitar as well as the composer’s rarely-heard Passacaglia “Omaggio a Roncalli”. Andrea kindly agreed to tell us about this latest project, which has already received several excellent reviews.
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04 Aug

Report from the Second Italian Jewish Studies Conference 

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

The Second Italian Jewish Studies conference, which was dedicated this year to “The Jews and Music in Modern and Contemporary Italy” was held from 3-7 July 2023 in Camaldoli, an enchanting location to consider the music and artistic journey of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and other composers of Italian-Jewish descent, such as Renzo Massarani, Vittorio Rieti, Leone Sinigaglia and Aldo Finzi.  The gathering, comprised of talks and concerts, involved an international group of leading scholars and exceptional musicians.
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28 Jun

Chamber Music: Benjamin Bernstein Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

In the late 1940s, after working for some years as a film composer in Hollywood, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco found his way back to chamber music, a genre he had always loved. Mario was inspired to write his celebrated Quintet for Guitar and Strings, op. 143, as well as other works that remained unpublished for many years. Thanks to the collaboration between Edizioni Curci and the composer’s family, many of these works are now published and available in the Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Collection. The Ensemble Mark Rothko, based in Northern Italy, has dedicated its latest recording project to Mario’s music from this period. Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Chamber Works (Da Vinci Classics) includes the world premiere recording of the Third String Quartet “Casa al Dono,”  op.203 (1964).  The composer’s final quartet, a work filled with nostalgia for Tuscany, is dedicated to the composer’s friend Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), the great scholar of Italian renaissance art. Benjamin Bernstein, Ensemble Mark Rothko’s violist, kindly accepted our invitation to tell us about this project and the group’s experience recording Mario’s music for the first time. 
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25 May
Antonio Rugolo Guitarist Interview

Solo guitar music: Antonio Rugolo Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

For his latest recording project, award-winning Italian guitarist Antonio Rugolo explores all of the works that Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote for solo guitar during his Italian years. Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: The Complete Italian Solo Guitar Music (Brilliant Classics) was born from Antonio’s desire to return to the Florentine composer’s scores, starting not from the classic editions revised by Andrés Segovia and published by Ricordi and Schott, but from the more recent manuscript-based editions published by Bèrben and Ricordi under the supervision of Angelo Gilardino and Luigi Biscaldi. In the liner notes, the guitarist explains that his intention was to highlight all the ideas Castelnuovo-Tedesco put forth in his guitar scores, with particular attention to the Sonata (Omaggio a Boccherini), the Capriccio Diabolico, and the Tarantella.  Antonio kindly agreed to tell us more about his experiences studying and recording this music. 
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11 May
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Songs of the Shulamite Performance in Greensboro NC May 2023

Songs of the Shulamite Reborn

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

In his later years, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco often returned to the Bible as a source of inspiration. In 1953 he wrote Songs of the Shulamite, a work for voice, flute, harp and string quartet, set to verses from the Song of Songs. Performed for the first time in Los Angeles in 1963 under the auspices of the University of Judaism, the work remained unpublished and unperformed for decades.  Samuel Magill, former Associate Principal Cello, The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and today Principal Cello, Western Piedmont Symphony, wanted to explore and champion this unknown work.  Sam and his collaborators in the North Carolina-based ensemble Sono Auros – flutist Lucian Rinando and harpist Grace Ludtke –  along with guest artists soprano Jodi Burns, violinists Janet Orenstein and Stephanie Ezerman, and violist Maureen Michels will perform this cycle on 17 May 2023 as part of a concert program at Temple Emanuel of Greensboro, North Carolina. The event will surely be the work’s first performance in the twenty-first century! Sam tells us more about the project in the following interview.
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29 Mar

Evangélion on stage: Alessandro Marangoni Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco considered Evangélion “the high point” of his piano compositions. Written in 1949, Evangélion: The Story of Jesus, Narrated to the Children in 28 Little Pieces for Piano, was often misunderstood during the composer’s life. It was rarely performed and essentially forgotten for decades. In 2014 the Italian pianist Alessandro Marangoni made the world premiere complete recording of this cycle for Naxos. In collaboration with the Italian actress Claudia Koll as the narrator, he has performed Evangélion all over Italy and abroad in a multi-sensorial production conceived by director Stefano Sgarella.  On the occasion of an upcoming performance in Palermo on 3 April, 2023 (Mario’s birthday!), Alessandro kindly agreed to tell us about the show they have created and about his experience bringing this intense work to the public. 
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