A cycle of six concerts, from 28 April to 26 May, involving in addition to the solo organists, the choral groups and instrumentalists of the G. Frescobaldi conservatory of Ferrara. The places that host the event are Portomaggiore, Comacchio, Burana, Terre del Reno, while in Ferrara the parish church of Santo Stefano will be the gateway to sacred music in April.
In fact, Ferrara Organistica aims, like every spring, to enhance the organ heritage of the city and its province through concerts involving teachers and students, as well as various musical ensembles from the highest musical institution in Ferrara. The 2024 edition sees the light at a particularly important moment for the life of the conservatory: in fact, the restoration work of the majestic auditorium – closed to the public for decades now – and of the large mechanical organ that the organ building company F.lli Ruffatti of Padua built in 1985.
Certainly the return to operation of this structure will constitute a notable change of direction for the entire Institute in terms of teaching and production activities. So it is precisely “Waiting for the auditorium” – thus the subtitle of the 2024 event – that it was decided to “warm up the machines” with the choice of a thick billboard, demanding and prestigious repertoires, in order to keep the attention on the “king of instruments”, in the meantime still orphaned of its important headquarters.
As in previous editions, we will stop in various towns and cities in the province of Ferrara, which have the honor of keeping precious organs, both ancient and modern, inside their churches. The inaugural concert will therefore be held on Sunday 28 April, at 6.30 pm, in the parish church of S. Agostino, in the municipality of Terre del Reno, with a program dedicated to the intersections between the Gregorian and organ repertoires, and will involve the organist Wladimir Matesic – holder of the Organ chair at Frescobaldi and artistic representative of the event – and the Schola Gregoriana Ecce, directed by Luca Buzzavi, teacher of choral exercises at the Monopoli conservatory. On the programme, music by JS Bach, Guilmant, Widor, Lemmens, with a coda left to extemporaneous improvisation.
The second appointment will involve the Basilica co-cathedral of Comacchio – Sunday 5 May at 5 pm -, where the organist Anna Govoni will perform, together with the voices of Elena Maria Giovanna Pinna and Marco Ciatto and the saxophones of Martino Luxich and Leonardo Pinna, all involved in a program dedicated to “experimentation” in music.
In summary, the other events: Friday 10 May, 6.45 pm, at the church of S. Stefano in Ferrara, concert for vocal ensemble and organ, where the organist Gabriele Martin will propose modern music written for an ancient organ in dialogue with the Ferrara ensemble Even. Sunday 12 May, in Burana, an appointment with an entirely baroque program for two sopranos and organ with the Méndez-Rigotti-Minghetti trio. Sunday 19 May, in Portomaggiore, will be the turn of a retrospective on the Roman School, concert for Choir and Organ where organist Kim Fabbri will perform the acrobatic Toccata op.12 by the great and never forgotten Maestro Fernando Germani. The Chamber Choir of the Conservatory, directed by Manolo Da Rold, will instead perform some of the most famous polyphonic works by Palestrina, Molfino and Bartolucci.
For the conclusion, Sunday 26 May, we return to where we started, in Terre del Reno, with a concert dedicated to Franz Liszt and European romanticism: the protagonists are the participants in the Masterclass held by Maestro Francesco Finotti and the Chamber Music class by Professor Anna Bellagamba.
