For Accademia del Piacere it has been an honor to participate in the programme of the inaugural season of the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie—a new musical center of such a high importance. Even a greater pleasure was to feel the warmth and the recognition of its public,  that of one of the true European capitals of music for centuries, which filled the room—sold out tickets months before the concert—and acclaimed long time our performance.

Here some photos of the event.

We begin an intense month of March for our ensemble. Today, March 3rd, in the the Auditori of Barcelona, we will perform together with Compañia Antonio Ruz  À l’Espagnole, una fantasía escénica, the innovative show that combines the music of the court of the Sun King with the contemporary dance. Tomorrow, March 4th, we will move physically to Madrid, but musically to the Rome of the Seicento to play Ecco l’alba luminosa at the Festival Arte Sacro, with Mariví Blasco as soloist, in a concert that will arrive at San Lorenzo de El Escorial one day after.

Friday, March 10th, the music of the court of Luis XIV will be back to the viols of Fahmi and Rami Alqhai in a chamber version, together with the harpsichord of Javier Núñez, to participate in the festival Pórtico do Paraíso—Gates of Paradise. Back to Seville we will play on Saturday 18th March in FEMÀS 2017 the music of Sebastián Durón and his contemporaries: Muera Cupido, featuring Nuria Rial, soprano. On Monday 20th, we will finally travel to Oviedo to perfrom this same program for the CNDM.

And the fifth week of the month … we will rest 😉

Fahmi Alqhai & Accademia del Piacere recover new Sebastián Durón’s music

Accademia del Piacere, Fahmi Alqhai’s ensemble, recovers unknown music of Sebastian Duron, in a tribute concert at the National Auditorium of Madrid, with soprano Nuria Rial as soloist—the most international Spanish soprano dedicated to historical music. Wednesday November 2, at the Auditorio Nacional of Madrid, they will perform a selection of arias of Sebastian Duron, the third centenary of whose death is commemorated in 2016. Duron, perhaps the most important Spanish composer of the times of Bach, worked in the cathedral of Seville before conducting the Royal Chapel of Madrid. There he composed a number of zarzuelas and operas, mostly unedited music but now recovered thanks to an intense reconstruction work carried out by Alqhai with musicologists Alvaro Torrente and Jose Maria Dominguez.

Muera Cupido, commissioned by the Ministry of Culture of Spain, will be played at the University of Salamanca a day later, and then will be performed in the Canary Islands Music Festival, among other important scenarios.

This one will not be the only news of Fahmi Alqhai this November: his latest solo recording for Glossa, The Bach Album, will be released next November 10th, before going back to the National Auditorium with Rocio Marquez on December 2 with its award-winning Dialogues of old and new tunes.

The Association of Spanish Early Music Ensembles (GEMA) granted on June 24th its annual awards, at the Auditorio Nacional of Spain (Madrid). Its winners were decided among historical music professionals for their performance in the past year,  2015. Accademia Piacere received two such awards: Best Baroque Group; and the Innovation Award in the field of historical music, to our show À l’Espagnole, an encounter with contemporary dance together with company Antonio Ruz. These grants come after three nominations to the Max de las Artes Escénicas recently given to À l’Espagnole: Best Dance Show, to the Best Choreography (Antonio Ruz), and Best Dancer (to the full cast).

Antonio Ruz won also the PAD Award 2015 (Asociación de Profesionales y Compañías por el Desarrollo de la Danza en Andalucía), to the Best Choreography, also for  À l’Espagnole. We attach a picture including our two statuettes of GEMA. THANK YOU!