Cappella Neapolitana & Antonio Florio
Biography Cappella Neapolitana & Antonio Florio
Cappella Neapolitana
“CAPPELLA NEAPOLITANA ANTONIO FLORIO”: A NEW NAME FOR THE ENSEMBLE THAT HAS MADE THE HISTORY OF BAROQUE NEAPOLITAN MUSIC AFTER ALMOST THIRTY YEARS, NEW PROJECTS FILLED WITH THE SAME RIGOROUS AND MOTIVATED APPROACH Originally called Cappella della Pietà dei Turchini, the ensemble was founded by Antonio Florio in 1987 after a ten-year period of studies and experimentations, and it has since become internationally appreciated thanks to rare concert programs, opera productions, and over 40 recordings, and it represents the symbol of the rediscovery of Neapolitan music written between the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Today – almost thirty years after its creation – that group of “bold pioneers” takes on the name of “Cappella Neapolitana Antonio Florio”, with the same musicians and collaborators that have contributed to develop this musical project since the very beginning. “Cappella Neapolitana Antonio Florio” is a registered trademark and it will be used for every forthcoming concert. A long, highly acclaimed and prestigious musical experience that began its journey at the precious Chiesa delle Pietà dei Turchini in Naples (also known as “Incoronatella”) to reach high international visibility with the ambition to present original Neapolitan repertoires – rediscovered and researched by Antonio Florio, aided since the beginning by musicologist Dinko Fabris – thus bringing back to life works of the highest musical and poetic quality by composers whose names have in some cases been unfairly neglected by historians; names such as those of Sabino, Salvatore, Netti, Caresana, Veneziano, Leo, Jommelli, Vinci, Latilla, Paisiello, Provenzale. A culturally exciting and educationally significant project that has contributed to the rediscovery of precious musical gems, today fully integrated within the repertoire of other important artists, and to the training of an entire new generation of musicians – not only Neapolitan musicians – who dedicate themselves to “ancient music”. Innumerable artistic and scientific collaborations have marked the journey since the beginning and have materialized into historical concert performances and significant recordings for labels such as Symphonia, and particularly Opus111, and the successful series “Les Trésors de Naples”. It’s impossible to list all the performances held in the most prestigious halls worldwide: United States, Argentina, Columbia, Brazil, Chile, China, Japan, and naturally Europe, including Claudio Abbado’s invitation to Berlin’s Philharmonie. One of many achievements of this exciting artistic journey was the creation in 1997 of a Centre for Ancient Music in Naples. Since 2010, and due to differing artistic visions, the original musical and scientific leaders, from Florio and Fabris themselves, started new and different journeys from the Centro Musica Antica now transformed into a Fondazione Pietà dei Turchini, defending their history and their internationally renowned interpretative approach. Today, counting on a collaboration with a very refined Spanish recording label, Glossa, the musicians who identify with programmatic and poetic guidelines of the original Turchini – independently from the organization bearing that name – have taken the name of “Cappella Neapolitana Antonio Florio” and, driven by the same rigorous approach and the same motivation, continue their work of research, restoration and interpretation of “Naples’ musical treasures”. Through its new name, the Cappella Neapolitana Antonio Florio intends to keep pursuing its commitment on the international musical panorama. Its first fruits will be the April release of Gaetano Veneziano: Passio, a new CD with by the label Glossa, starring the Ghisleri Choir and soloists Raffaele Pe, Luca Cervoni, Marco Bussi. The first concert performance of the Cappella Neapolitana Antonio Florio is also dedicated to Gaetano Veneziano, a musician whose three-hundredth anniversary falls in 2016. His Passione Secondo Giovanni (1685) will be performed in Naples on March 24 at the Auditorium Castel Sant’Elmo, at 9 pm, as part of the Concert Season of the Associazione Alessandro Scarlatti. The ensemble will then be performing in Florence (14 June) and in numerous summer festivals, the details of which will soon be released.
Antonio Florio
was born in Bari, where he received his classical education, graduating in Cello, Piano, and Composition at the local Conservatory, under the guidance of Maestro Nino Rota. He later pursued his studies of ancient instruments and baroque performance practice. In 1987, he founded the Turchini Ensemble (from 2016 Cappella Neapolitana), and from then on he devoted himself with great commitment to both concerts and intensive musicological research. In particular, he explored the repertoire of Neapolitan music of the 17th and 18th Centuries, uncovering masterpieces that had never been published before; he has taken care of their representations by the most prestigious theatres in Italy and Europe. The many titles unearthed by Florio include La colomba ferita (1670), Il schiavo di sua moglie (1671) and La Stellidaura vendicante (1674) by Francesco Provenzale, Il disperato innocente by Francesco Boerio (1673), La finta cameriera by Gaetano Latilla (1673), Li Zite’n Galera by Leonardo Vinci (1722), Il Pulcinella vendicato by Giovanni Paisiello (1767), Statira by Francesco Cavalli - from a 1666 Naples edition - , Montezuma by Francesco De Majo (1765). In 1999 and 2000, Florio conducted the Symphony Orchestra of Santiago de Compostela, presenting La Serva Padrona and Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. His teaching efforts have not been any less challenging: he has given seminars and master classes on Baroque vocal and chamber music for the “Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles”, the “Fondation Royaumont” and the Conservatory of Toulouse. He is also Professor of Chamber Music at the Conservatory San Pietro a Majella in Naples, where he delivers a university course on Baroque style and repertoire. His most recent commitments include the recovery and revision of the of Leonardo Vinci’s opera seria La Partenope, which was edited in 2004 and will be presented on stage this year at the theatre of Ponferrada, and at the Auditorium of León, Spain. The year 2005 was devoted by Antonio Florio to the discovery and review of the opera La Finta Giardiniera by Pasquale Anfossi, which he had already presented to the “Fondation Royaumont”, together with the eponymous work by Mozart; both the concert and the stage perfrmonces he delivered were also the subject of an international workshop. In 2006, he directed his own ensemble at the prestigious festival “Anima Mundi” in Pisa, before taking the show Festa Napoletana to four venues in China. In the same year, Antonio Florio received the first edition of the “Award for the diffusion of Mediterranean Music” by Mousiké, Bari’s Festival of Ancient Mediterranean Music. During the 2007 concert season he was guest (conductor) at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena and at the Ravenna Festival, at the Associazione Scarlatti in Naples, the Centre Lyrique d’Auvergne Clermont Ferrand in France, and the Ravello Festival. In 2008, he conducted the opera Alidoro by Leonardo Leo at the Valli theatre in Reggio Emilia and at the Mercadante in Naples. The show, available on DVD, won the prestigious “Diapason d’Or” award and the “Orphée d’or du disque lyrique” award. At the same time, in Oviedo (Spain) he was awarded the “Luis Gracia Iberni” award (the equivalent of the Abbiati Prize in Italy) for Best Musical Director for the first performance in modern times of the opera Ottavia restituita al trono by Domenico Scarlatti, presented in San Sebastian in August 2007. In October 2008 he won the “Premio Napoli” for the section “Hidden Excellence” of the city of Naples. He has taken part at the “MITO” Festival, presenting the concert version of the opera Acis and Galatea by Handel at the Teatro dell’Arte in Milan; in June 2009, he then presented a stage performance of the same opera, directed by David Livermore, at the Regio Theatre in Turin. Also in 2009, he presented La Partenope by Vinci in a co-production with the Theatre of León in Spain (at the San Carlo Theatre in Naples, at the La Maestranza in Seville, in La Coruña, Santander and Murcia; he received the Oviedo Prize for best theatrical production) and went on a long Italian with the Stabat Mater by Pergolesi. In 2010, he directed Orpheus and Eurydice by Fux at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, and on several occasions the Baroque orchestra “Casa da Musica” of Porto and the Orchestra of Galicia-La Coruña.
