Each summer we, the musicians, are a little shocked from the first outdoor concerts of the season..Acoustics are difficult, the wind messes up the parts, the mosquitos are flying right around your fingers..Last Sunday though, I had the great pleasure and the unfortunately too rare occasion, to play in a wonderful setting surrounded by nature. All my preconceptions were overturned right away. The occasion was given by the opening concert of the “young” but already relevant festival Le voci dalla montagna, now at its 4th edition, in Pescasseroli and occurs in the wonderful space of the Parco Nazionale d’Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise. The setting was just made of grass, rocks, trees. Wind was blowing and environmentals sounds improvised a dialogue with my cello…a baby crying, cows’s bells… A wonderful experience to be repeted soon!
Very excited to start a new project such as this! a newborn contemporary music festival in London curated by myself and Emanuele Torquati at the exclusive and supercool Rosenfeld Porcini Gallery in Fitzrovia.. two days packed with new (and old!) music in dialogue …with great composers as guests (Matthew Shlomowitz, Laurence Crane, Howard Skempton..). the new Dowland-inspired project by flutist Manuel Zurria , the Dillon-Torquati duo programme about the recently disappeared swedish poet Tomas Transtromer, the violin hero Thomas Gould to present recent works by Nico Muhly and Francesco Filidei and the beautiful chamber music by Franz Liszt… and much more!
http://rosenfeldporcini.com/friday-10-april-–-saturday-11-april-contemporary-music-festival/
Few days ago I played in Paris with pianist ,friend and regular collaborator Emanuele Torquati.
The Italian Institute of culture is having a great number of music events ,regularly inviting the most talented italian interpreters and composers for concerts or even longer residencies. A fantastic oppurtunity to live and work one month in the always wonderful Paris.
This concert though,was quite a special one . Marina Valensise ,the dynamic and vibrant director of the IIC, decided to provide a new Fazioli grand piano for the Hall and this was the opening event of the funding campaign.
here is the link to contribute this important initiative:
http://www.amishotelgalliffet.com/sottoscrizione-pianoforte-fazioli/
and here is a short video of the concert and event:
Live in Paris
Really happy and proud to play the premiere of the new cello concerto (if we want to call it according to old definitions…) BRUNNEN by the great composer Carola Bauckholt. It is dedicated to me and I’m very proud to contribute somehow to new ,great works for my instrument.
It is a wonderful piece: very experimental , noisy , beautiful and touching , funny and ironical , scary and dark …. It has many different layers and colours as it happens with good music from any time and period…
it will be the opening concert of the important Klangspuren Festival and I will be playing with the brilliant Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck conducted by the excellent Johannes Kalitzke ! I ‘ll post the recording as soon as possible
http://www.klangspuren.at/index.php?id=249&L=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=358&cHash=5a9577802e929fc8afcd3390d46869a5
Getting ready to leave to Banna (Torino) for a new recording session with my dear Schumann…
A third album with Emanuele Torquati on piano ,to complete our recording project on Friederich Grutzmacher’s Schumann transcriptions…it will include the first ,wonderful, violin sonata and another rarity such as the third Suite by Bach with the accompaniment by Schumann himself. apparently the only still surviving of the complete cycle..in my opinion a revelating work that should be more known ..not only an interesting ,weird oddity… check out the wonderful sarabande and let me know..
this the tracklist
Festlicher Marsch (aus op. 76)
Aufschwung (aus op. 12)
Trauermarsch (aus op. 44)
Sonata n. 1 op. 105
J.S. Bach – R. Schumann: Suite n. 3
R. Schumann: Romanzen op. 94
here is the link to a video of a lesson I gave few months ago in Bologna’s conservatory. It ‘s a synthetic overview of some of the most important pieces for cello of the last decades.. (in my opinion of course!)
it has spoken parts (in italian only..sorry!) and some performances (Harvey,Ligeti,Sciarrino..)
thanks to Paolo Aralla that organized and introduced and put the video on line-
here is the link:
http://www.paoloaralla.it/CLASSE-MATERIALI-DIDATTICI/SEMINARI/SEMINARIO-DILLON/start.html
here is the link to a recent interview ,only in italian …but maybe I ‘ll translate one day? (or you could try with google translator and see if it still makes any sense…!)
http://www.ilritaglio.it/2012/cultura/francesco-dillon-violoncellista-italiano/
I have been invited with my long-term duo partner Emanuel Torquati to take part at 75th edition of one of the oldest and most prestigious Italian music Festivals:Festival del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino . For this special occasion,our duo
will give the premiere of “La quarta parte della terra”, a project completely devoted to Southamerican repertoire and inspired by Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci. In one of his letters, he named the new lands that he was about to discover, “The fourth part of Earth” (La quarta parte della terra).
In order to celebrate the 500th Anniversary from his death, we chose a wide selection of pieces written by most prominent Latinamerican composers, e.g. Alberto Ginastera, Heitor Villa Lobos, Carlos Guastavino and Astor Piazzolla.
The program is inspired by the idea of a mesmerizing journey between evocations, sounds and images, with the contribution of video artist Luca Di Pierro (USA-Italy) and film maker Gaston Solnicki (Argentina) and I’ m also working on some electronic interludes (that I’ll later post here) to connect the pieces and make the whole programme sound as one big composition.
The project will feature Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras n. 2 and the beautiful Song of the Black Swan, as well as virtuosic pieces like Ginastera’s Pampeana n. 2 and Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango. Last but not least I will perform a new cello solo piece with electronics by Martin Bauer, while Emanuele Torquati will present Tango errante by Maria Cecilia Villanueva.
maggio musicale’s website : http://www.maggiofiorentino.it/index.php?option=com_content&id=190&Itemid=104&lang=it
Last week I spent to interesting and full days in the CENTRE HENRI POUSSER to record and experiment together with the italian composer based in India Riccardo Nova.
We worked on acid distorsions, just intonation, very high harmonics,on both electric and acoustic cellos providing the basic material for a new music theater work (nineteen Mantras) with both italian and indian musicians plus heavy electronics and dance that will be premiered in Roma next January
