Aldo Campagnari - Francesco Dillon - Aki Kuroda

The Pharos Arts Foundation presents a unique concert on Friday 20 April 2018, at The Shoe Factory, Nicosia with Aldo Campagnari, Francesco Dillon and Aki Kuroda. Violinist and cellist, respectively, of the internationally acclaimed and multi-award winning Quartetto Prometeo (Pro Harmonia Mundi Prize, ARD Munich, Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, Prague Spring International Music Competition, Leone d' Argento at the Biennale in Venice), Aldo Campagnari and Francesco Dillon have performed in some of the world’s most important venues including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Buenos Aires’ Colon Theatre, the Berlin Philharmonie, amongst many others, and as soloists, they have appeared with a number of notable orchestras such as the Italian National Radio Orchestra (RAI), the SWR Symphony Orchestra of Stuttgart and the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Vienna. Their keen passion for chamber music has led to a number of interesting partnerships with other musicians and their profound interest in contemporary music has led to collaborations with some of the most important composers of our time: Sofia Gubaidulina, Jonathan Harvey, Steve Reich, Arvo Pärt, Helmut Lachenmann, Ivan Fedele, and especially with Salvatore Sciarrino, with whom they have been working extensively. For their concert in Nicosia, Campagnari and Dillon will join forces with the exciting Japanese pianist Aki Kuroda in a programme of piano trios by Fauré, Ravel and Francesco Filidei. The concert is kindly supported by the Embassy of Italy in Cyprus.

PROGRAMME:

Gabriel Faurè (1845-1924)
Piano Trio in D minor, Op.121 (1923)

Francesco Filidei (b.1973)
Corde vuote for Piano Trio (2010)

interval

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Piano Trio in A minor (1914)

ALDO CAMPAGNARI violin

Aldo Campagnari, violinist of the internationally acclaimed Quartetto Prometeo (winner of many prestigious awards including the 50th Prague Spring International Music Competition, the Pro Harmonia Mundi Prize and the Leone d' Argento at the Biennale in Venice), has appeared in some of the world’s most important venues and festivals, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall in London, the Musikverein, Auditorium Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Aldeburgh Festival and the Prague Spring Festival.

Aldo Campagnari studied with Pierantonio Cazzulani and Armando Burattin, and later, with Massimo Quarta in Bologna. He was still a student when he was appointed Concertmaster of the Italian Youth Orchestra under Riccardo Muti, Carlo Maria Giulini and Giuseppe Sinopoli and worked in the La Scala Orchestra in Milan.

Campagnari was recorded by the Italian Radios, German ARD in Munich and Saarbrueken, Austrian ORF, Belfast BBC, and Czech Radio. For the music newspaper Amadeus, he recorded the Schumann Quartets, for ECM he recorded transcriptions of Bach's Art of Fuge and music for guitar by Aguado, Tarrega and Sor transcribed by Stefano Scodanibbio. With the Prometeo Quartet, he also recorded the opus omnium for string quartet of Hugo Wolf and Salvatore Sciarrino, and for Brilliant, the Szymanowski quartets together with Debussy's quartet.

Collaborations include musicians such as Alexander Lonquich, Veronka Hagen, David Geringas, Antony Pay, Eduard Brunner, Boris Petrushansky, Enrico Pace. In year 2006, Aldo Campagnari founded the Prometeo Quartet Festival in Lodi, and between 2006 and 2009, he was the artistic director of Contemporaneamente – a festival dedicated to contemporary music. He is also violinist of Alter Ego, a Rome-based quintet specialised in contemporary and experimental music, which has been collaborating with the most important composers of our times.

Aldo Campagnari is a professor of string quartet at the Conservatorio Superiore di Lugano, a professor of violin at the Conservatorio di Trento and of chamber music at the Conservatorio in Alessandria, and he is the Assistant of Salvatore Sciarrino at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena. He has also held a successful master-class series at the Orlando Festival in Holland and at the Pacific University in California.

FRANCESCO DILLON cello

Francesco Dillon already has a brilliant international career to his credit, characterised by the originality and variety of the repertoire that he has embraced. As a soloist, he has performed in such prestigious concert halls as the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Herkulessaal of Munich, the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the Jordan Hall in Boston and the Colon Theatre of Buenos Aires, with such renowned orchestras as the Italian National Radio Orchestra (RAI), the SWR Symphony Orchestra of Stuttgart, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Vienna, the Orchestra of the Colon Theatre, the Oulu Sinfonia Finland, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, amongst others. Most recently, Dillon made an acclaimed debut with the Philharmonic Orchestra of La Scala, Milan, conducted by Susanna Mallki.

Francesco Dillon studied in Florence under the guidance of Andrea Nannoni, and subsequently with Anner Bijlsma, Mario Brunello, David Geringas and Mstislav Rostropovich. He also studied composition with Salvatore Sciarrino. In 1993 he was one of the founders of the Quartetto Prometeo, a chamber group of international acclaim and winner of numerous prizes (Prague Spring, ARD Munich, Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition). Prometeo has been recently honoured with the Leone d’Argento award of the Biennale Musica of Venice.

Francesco Dillon’s passion for chamber music has led to performances with musicians such as Irvine Arditti, Mario Brunello, Giuliano Carmignola, Piero Farulli, David Geringas, Veronika Hagen, Alexander Lonquich, Enrico Pace, Jean-Guihen Queyras. His profound interest in contemporary music has led to collaborations with some of the most important composers of our time: Gavin Bryars, Ivan Fedele, Luca Francesconi, Stefano Gervasoni, Philip Glass, Sofija Gubaidulina, Jonathan Harvey, Toshio Hosokawa, Giya Kancheli, Alexander Knaifel, Helmut Lachenmann, David Lang, Arvo Pärt, Henri Pousseur, Steve Reich, Kaija Saariaho, Salvatore Sciarrino and with cult experimental musicians such as Matmos, William Basinsky and John Zorn. Since 2010, he has been artistic director of the contemporary music series Music@villaromana in Florence.

Dillon's performances have been broadcast by such important broadcasters as the BBC, RAI, ARD, Radio France, ORF, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and WDR. He has recorded for the ECM label, as well as Sony, Kairos, Ricordi, Stradivarius, Die Schachtel, Mode and Touch. He recently released the first recording of Variations by Salvatore Sciarrino, which received the Diapason d'Or award, and Ballata by Giacinto Scelsi, both with the Italian National Radio Orchestra (RAI). As a duo with the pianist Emanuele Torquati, Francesco Dillon has released three CDs of rare music of Schumann and the complete works for cello by Franz Liszt for the Brilliant Classics label.

Alongside his concert activity, Francesco Dillon has taught in a number of recognised academic institutions, such as the Royal College of Music in London, the Scuola di musica di Fiesole, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Moscow, the Pacific University in California, Untref-Buenos Aires, Manchester University.

AKI KURODA piano

After graduating from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts, pianist Aki Kuroda went on to further her studies in Italy with Bruno Mezzena, receiving a degree in 20th-century piano music with distinction from the Accademia Musicale Pescarese.

Aki performs extensively as a soloist and a chamber musician both in Japan and in Europe. Prize winner in the 1993 Concours Musical de France and she was awarded the Xavier Montsalvatge Prize for Performance of Contemporary Piano Music, in 1995 in Spain, amongst others.

Kuroda’s repertoire spans from classical to contemporary and she often includes classical as well as new works in her programmes, as for example, a historical concert at the Teatro Regio di Parma, performing Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition alongside a composition dedicated to her by Maurizio Pisati. She subsequently performed Michael Jarrell’s Modifications at the Ticino Musica Festival, gave a brilliant performance of Schoenberg’s Kammersymphonie Op.9 in its piano solo version in Tokyo and Osaka, and performed Sylvano Bussotti’s new composition The Poetic Keyboard at the Cagliari Spaziomusica Festival. Kuroda collaborates regularly with a number of renowned musicians such as clarinettist Alessandro Carbonare and the Prometheus Quartet.

Aki Kuroda is a passionate exponent of Astor Piazzolla’s music, to whom her first solo albums are dedicated (Japan Victor). Her videogame music recording Final Fantasy X. XIII, Piano Collection has been universally praised. In 2004, she released the album Tarkus / Pictures at an Exhibition, dedicated to the works of Keith Emerson. Aki Kuroda's disc Firebird, released by the Ordradek label in 2014, has earned her considerable critical acclaim, receiving 5 stars from the BBC Music Magazine among various other distinctions. Kuroda is also a member of the Tokyo Gen'On project and the commission of the Piano Teachers' National Association of Japan (PTNA).

Tickets:
€15 / €10 Concessions & members of the Pharos Arts Foundation,
Box Office: Directly from the Foundation’s website www.pharosartsfoundation.org/Tickets_online.htm or Tel. 9666-9003 (Monday - Friday 10:00am-3:00pm)