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News from Matteo and Europa Ritrovata

 

The Ensemble Europa Ritrovata was born in 2013 in Brussels and has already performed several times in Belgium and France.
Europa Ritrovata consists of young musicians who usually perform on main stages and festivals in whole Europe like Utrecht Oude Muziek Festival, Venetian Centre for Baroque Music, New Year Festival Gstaad, Grandezza & Meraviglie Modena, Euro Classica Online Festival, Bozar Festival.
Each musician plays with other ensembles like Collegium Vocale, Scherzi Musicali, Ensemble Odyssee, Il Gene Barocco, Euterpe Baroque Consort, Officina Musicum, Bianco Fiore and many more.
They completed their studies with important teachers like Barthold and Wieland Kuijken, Philippe Pierlot, Frank Theuns, Bart Coen, Peter de Clercq and Frederick Haas.

“The aim of Europa Ritrovata is to combine all the different attitudes and national peculiarities of its members, in order to create a new style to perform repertory of the XVIIIth century using copies of original instruments from that period.
Besides, the Ensemble is working on developing a new language for historical instruments,
which consists in a serie of projects that follow the common intent to use these instruments
in unusual scenarios, such as performing contemporary music and accompanying contemporary dance.
The Ensemble’s intent is to provide a new musical repertory for historical instruments; these instruments deserve to survive not only in the mainstream early music departments, orchestras and academies. More than that they need someone to breathe new life into them, to find a new place alongside the other protagonists of today’s music.”
Matteo Gemolo, artistic director

“Barococorico came out of my love of baroque ornamentation. Although the austere repetitions of minimalist music have a place in my heart, I’ve always found something magical about the trills and frills of Bach, Rameau, etc. My big question to Matteo Gemolo before I started composing the piece was, “Is ornamentation just decoration, or does it serve a deeper musical purpose?” He answered yes–mordents and trills are the adjectives of Baroque grammar, completely inseparable from the rest of the notes they describe.
I began to wonder if it was possible to create a piece completely out of ornaments. It would be a bit like baking a cake made entirely of frosting. I began my research with Bach’s table of ornaments (below). The main motive of the piece is “Doppelt-Cadence und Mordant” which has a beautiful symmetry and contains both a trill and a mordent. I had a blast writing the pièce and I hope you find all of the little quirky things I hid in the score.” Albert Behar

Contact : europaritrovata@gmail.com
matteogemolo@gmail.com

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