Dillon-Torquati @ La Biennale and Fall Concerts

corsa duo

Emanuele Torquati will join his chamber music partner, cellist Francesco Dillon, for a prestigious Recital at Venice Biennale on 9th October, 8 pm, at Sala delle Colonne di Ca’ Giustinian. The exciting program will feature the world premiere of two new works especially written for the Duo, “Memorie di Tempesta” by Federico Gardella and “Regarding cracked peace of stones, earth and flowers” by Milica Djordjevic. The Recital will include also important works by Thomas Larcher and Salvatore Sciarrino, and also another piece devoted to the Duo, “Further in” by Silvia Borzelli.
The Duo will be very active in Fall, with Recitals in Catania, at Associazione Musicale Etnea on 20th October, in Milan at Associazione Musica d’Insieme on 18th November and in Bludenz (Austria) on 20th at Bludenzer Tage Zeitgemaesser Musik, with programs ranging from Beethoven to Lachenmann.

Filidei Piano Concerto @ PlayIT!

Emanuele Torquati will give the Italian premiere of Francesco Filidei Piano Concerto, Ballata n. 3 (2013), at the Festival PlayIT! with ORT, Orchestra Regionale della Toscana, with conductor Francesco Lanzillotta.

PlayIT! is entirely devoted to the Italian music of our time. As Artistic Director Giorgio Battistelli says “The aim of the festival is to give space, insight, and attention to the visionaries of today’s most interesting music, from both a compositional aspect and an interpretation of contemporary Italian art music. A presentation of the best young talents and of the most prominent figures of today, this festival is capable of binding multiple generations of performers and composers”.

Skrjabin Piano Concerto with AVANTI! and Matthias Pintscher

On next 25th June Emanuele Torquati will perform rare Aleksandr Skrjabin Piano Concerto in f# sharp minor in Finland, under the baton of Matthias Pintscher. This year is the 100th Anniversary of Skrjabin’s death and this Concerto is a hidden gem of the repertoire for Piano and Orchestra and was composed in 1897, when the composer was only 25.

This will be the opening concert of of “AVANTI – Summer Sounds / Idyll”, the prestigious Festival organized by AVANTI! Chamber Orchestra since 30 years. It will be a full immersion in different music genre’s, ranging from chamber to symphonic and also electronic sets. In the past years, great composers served as Artistic directors of this important event, a.o. Franco Donatoni, Helmuth Lachenmann, Jonathan Harvey and Kaija Saariaho.

Portrait Concert Ablinger/Furrer at Austrian Cultural Forum Rome

Emanuele Torquati will perform an extensive program for a prestigious Portrait concert featuring music by Peter Ablinger and Beat Furrer. Both of them will present for the occasion, which will take place at Austrian Cultural Forum in Rome on 20th May at 8,00 pm.

Program includes a various selection from “Voices and Piano” for piano and CD, an extensive piano cycle written by Peter Ablinger since 1998 and still in progress. Selection made by Emanuele Torquati, who performed the works under composer’s supervision, includes German actress Hanna Schygulla, as well as great characters such as Pierpaolo Pasolini and Josè Luis Borges, and also a piece devoted to him, featuring the unforgettable Anna Magnani.
WATCH A VIDEO ON “PASOLINI” PERFORMED BY EMANUELE

The second half of the concert, will start with first Beat Furrer’s piano piece, the seminal “Voicelessness, the snow has no voice” (1986). Afterwards, outstanding flutist Manuel Zurria will join Emanuele for “Presto” (1997), a virtuosic Duo for flute and piano.
LISTEN TO “VOICELESSNESS, THE SNOW HAS NO VOICE” PERFORMED BY EMANUELE

London Recital

Emanuele will make his Solo Debut in London on next 18th March in the exclusive Rosenfeld Porcini Gallery, with a fascinating program featuring works by Brahms, Sciarrino and Castiglioni. The core of the evening will be the Piano music by Alexander von Zemlinsky, whom Emanuele devoted his last CD, “A Ray of Light”, which won great critical acclaim since its release on last December.
Anthony Beaumont, well-known musicologist and author of Zemlinsky’s most extensive Biography, wrote: “I much appreciate Torquati’s feel for Viennese rubato and for the ‘great gesture’ of Zemlinsky’s early compositions, but also his sense of humour, his delightfully dry staccato, which is essential in some of these works. This is the third CD of Zemlinsky’s piano music to come my way — and by far the most enjoyable It is a pleasure to hear them so well and idiomatically played, and so well recorded”.

Listen to some Zemlinsky HERE!

Duo Dillon-Torquati in France

Emanuele Torquati will come back in France with his chamber music partner, renowned cellist Francesco Dillon, after last year’s concerts in Paris, which received great critical acclaim.

The Duo will be on stage in Strasbourg on 25th and in Paris on 27th with two Recitals, featuring the rare Sonata written in 1888 by Francesco Cilea, famous for his opera “Adriana Lecouvreur”, and two milestone of 20th century cello and piano repertoire: Janàcek’s seminal “Pohadka” and highly demanding Sostakovic Sonata in D minor op. 40. Both concerts will take place at the local Italian Cultural Institutes.

Last venue of the Tour will be the prestigious Hotel de Galliffet on 2nd March, where the Duo will present a Portrait on Italian rising talent’s composer, Francesco Filidei. His chamber and solo works will be interspersed by some late Franz Liszt oeuvres, such as La lugubre gondola, part of one of the Duo last recordings. Violin virtuoso Saori Furukawa will join the Duo for Filidei’s “Corde vuote” and Liszt’s Tristia, a rarely performed version of “La Vallée d’Obermann” made by the composer himself.

NEW CDs OUT!

Emanuele Torquati has recently released two brand new CDs!

On last November, for a Portrait on Samy Moussa, for prestigious production with ORF Wien, DSO Berlin and Kent Nagano published by COL LEGNO.

On last December, his new Album “A Ray of Light”, featuring the Complete Piano Music by Alexander von Zemlinsky has been published by Brilliantclassics. This publication includes also the first world premiere recording of the second version of “Ein Lichstrahl” and is already receiving a great critical acclaim. READ HERE a Review by Stephen Smoliar for The Examiner.

Both recordings are available HERE.

Argentina Tour

Emanuele Torquati will be back in Argentina at the end of November for 4 different concerts.

The first one will take place on 25th November at Teatro General San Martin in Buenos Aires, where Emanuele will give the Argentinian premiere of “Transit” for piano, video and electronics by Dutch composer Michel Van der Aa.
The concert is part of the biggest New Music Festival in Latin America, the Ciclo de Conciertos de Musica Contemporanea. Listen to an excerpt HERE.

After this engagement, he will present his project “Natura degli Affetti” in two different Recitals, on 1st December at La Plata State Conservatory and on 7th December at Distat Terra Festival in Choele Choel. In this occasion, the programme will feature also a world premiere of a new piece commissioned for the occasion and written by Giuliano Bracci.

On 5th December, Emanuele will join renowned Argentinian baritone, Victor Torres, for a Lieder Recital, including works by Haydn, Dowland, Purcell, Schubert, Schumann, Skrjabin and new works by Daniele Ghisi and Mariano Etkin.

Fall Concerts @ Berlin, Addis Abeba, Prague

Emanuele Torquati will extensively perform during this Fall, both as soloist and chamber musician.

He will present two new Solo Projects: the first in Berlin at Piano Salon Christophori on 15th October, focused on Ballads, including Brahms seminal Ballads op. 10 and rare works by Alexander von Zemlinsky and Edvard Grieg major work, Ballade op. 24; the second – “Natura degli Affetti” – in Addis Abeba for the Italian Cultural Institute on 10th November, based on a dialogue between Italian Baroque and New Music pieces, with contrasting characters and musical landscapes.

More, he will present a chamber music Recital with his usual partner, cellist Francesco Dillon, on 31st October in Pinerolo at Teatro del Lavoro, and on 21st November in Prague for the 7th edition of Contempuls Festival. The Duo will present a varied selection of New Music works by Thomas Larcher, David Lang, and Salvatore Sciarrino’s masterwork “Melencolia 1″. This program include also two new works recently written for the Duo from rising Italian talents, Daniele Ghisi and Silvia Borzelli.

Duo Dillon-Torquati on Tomas Transtromer

Duo Dillon-Torquati’s upcoming project is about Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer, Noble Prize Winner in 2011. Very passionate into music, Transtromer devoted several poems to composers of the past, such as Edvard Grieg and Franz Schubert, took inspiration from specific works of the repertoire, such as Liszt “La lugubre gondola”, and used peculiar musical forms (a.o. Preludes and Nocturnes). “TRANCE-TROMER: Words and Sounds around Tomas Transtromer”, includes a varied selection of musical works from the Romantic repertoire (Grieg, Liszt, Schumann) and features two world premieres, by Silvia Borzelli and Laurent Durupt, especially written for this project. Verses, read by different voices in different languages, will be interspersed with music, and sometimes rielaborated with electronic treatments. The project will be presented on 3rd October (9,15 pm) at 5th Edition of music@villaromana Concert series in Florence.