© Kai Bienert
The Orchestra Giovanile Italiana (OGI) has been a guest at Young Euro Classic several times, and now it finally returns to the Konzerthaus after a longer hiatus. On each of its visits it proved itself an ensemble which combines Mediterranean temperament with profound educational aspirations. Founded nearly 40 years ago in Fiesole near Florence, it has been conducted by Italy’s leading conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Carlo Maria Giulini, Giuseppe Sinopoli and Gianandrea Noseda. Composers such as Sylvano Bussotti and Giorgi Battistelli have composed works for OGI. The musicians have been invited to many European cities, including Edinburgh, Madrid, Prague and Budapest. In 2010 the OGI was invited by the Italian President Napoletano to perform the concert honouring Pope Benedict XVI on the fifth anniversary of his pontificate. In June 2019 the orchestra was invited by President Mattarella to perform at the Quirinal Palace on the holiday commemorating the Republic of Italy.
Konzerthaus, Berlin
© Marco Borrelli
The Italian Daniele Giorgi, born in Florence in 1970, has been pursuing a triple career as a violinist, composer and conductor for many years. Trained in his hometown at the Conservatory “Luigi Cherubini”, the violinist became a member of the Orchestra della Toscana at the age of 28. From 2002 onwards he dedicated himself to conducting studies with Pietro Bellugi and Isaac Karabchevsky; in 2004 Giorgi was successful at the Conducting Competition Antonio Pedrotti in Trento. Subsquently he has conducted a multitude of Italian ensembles in Rome, Turin, Padua and Cagliari; since 2006 he has regularly been a guest artist at the Cantiere d’Arte in Montepulciano, founded by Hans Werner Henze in 1989. In 2014 Giorgi founded his own Chamber Orchestra Leonore in Pistoia, which has performed with soloists such as Isabelle Faust, Gabriela Montero, Alban Gerhardt and Olli Mustonen. The conductor also initiated the project Floema, which has the mission of recalibrating the relationships between musical institutions and performance venues.
© Walter Huber
Originally from Florence, the composer Massimiliano Matesic studied composition in his hometown with Salvatore Sciarrino and Gaetano Giani Luporini, before moving on in 1996 to study in Freiburg, Germany, with Peter Gülke. Since then, he has taught orchestral conducting at the Freiburg Music Academy. Special focuses of Matesic’ work as a conductor, composer and arranger are his collaboration with the legendary rock musician John Lord (whose Concerto for Rock Band and Orchestra he first performed in Switzerland in 2009) and with the Sicilian songwriter Pippo Pollina. His orchestral works include Three Symphonic Images (2004), the Serenata for string orchestra, a Cello Concerto and the Violin Concerto The Anatomy of Melancholy. In addition to chamber music, Matesic has also written a multitude of songs setting poems by Petrarch, Shakespeare, Rilke and Hofmannsthal; he also arranged Schubert’s Winterreise for orchestra. Together with his wife, the violinist Daria Zappa, he has been the director of the music festival “Festival of Silence” in Aargau since 2008.
“Klezmer Rhapsodie” (2004, German premiere) 🏆
Concert Waltz in D-flat-major Op. 90 (1950)
”The Firebird“ Suite for Orchestra (1919 version)
Prelude No. 1 from “Three American Preludes” (2014)
Symphonic Dances Op. 45 (1940)
🥂 Celebrate with us! At the traditional AUDIENCE PARTY after the concert.
About the concert
The Orchestra Giovanile Italiana, the National Youth Orchestra of Italy – or OGI for short – looks back on 40 years of tradition, and many prominent Italian conductors, from Riccardo Muto to Giuseppe Sinopoli and Gianandrea Noseda, have worked with its young musicians. After a lengthy hiatus, the Italians finally return to Young Euro Classic – with a programme including many different colours and nuances. Massimiliano Matesic, a composer living in Switzerland, integrated Klezmer music into one of his Symphonic Images of 2004; the Russian Reinhold Glière, a composer with German roots who was born in Kyiv, composed his sensuous Concert Waltz Op. 80 in 1950. The first part of the concert ends with Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, a brilliant orchestral piece taking listeners into the fascinating fairy-tale world of Russia. After the interval, we travel to the USA: the first of the Three American Preludes by the German composer Detlev Glanert is short, but very impressive; melancholy, on the other hand, is the dominant emotion in Sergei Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, in which the aged, exiled composer drew a rousing musical summary of his life. A rewarding programme for the young musicians of OGI!