An Evening with Roberto Scarcella Perino’s Chamber Music and a Scene from His New Opera “Enrico IV”, Based on Pirandello

Roberto Scarcella Perino

COMPOSER

Roberto Scarcella Perino’s music has been commissioned, performed, and recorded by excellent ensembles and soloists throughout Europe and The United States, including the Orchestra Arturo Toscanini, the Orchestra Regionale Toscana, Giuseppe Bruno, Andrea Obiso and the Exclusive Saxophone Quartet. His works include five operas, 2 piano concertos, movie scores, three ballets, chamber and choral music.

His first opera, A Caval Donato, (libretto by Flora Gagliardi) commissioned and premiered by Teatro Verdi in Pisa in 1999, has been produced also at Teatro Vittorio Emanuele in Messina. Mr. Scarcella Perino was chosen to write the music for Verdi, Merli and Cucù, (libretto by Gustavo Marchesi) an opera commissioned and premiered by Teatro Verdi in Busseto, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of death of Giuseppe Verdi in 2001. Blackout (libretto by Roberta Faroldi) had its world premiere in October 2003 at the Tarrytown Music Hall in New York, and had further productions at Teatro Piccolo Regio in Turin and at Teatro Savio in Messina.

His Azione in Musica for children’s chorus (libretto by Federica Anichini), Le Passioni dell’Anima, the sequel to his successful Le Passioni dell’Aria, was premiered in Italy in April 2017 and one month later in New York performed by the New York City Children’s Chorus.

August 2017 saw the world premiere of his new opera Furiosus (libretto by Flora Gagliardi) commissioned by the International Opera Theater of Philadelphia in Città della Pieve (Umbria), later performed also in Florence in 2019 and in February 2023 was performed with a fantastic cast from the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Merkin Hall in New York produced by The Casa italiana Zerilli-Marimò.

His latest opera A Sweet Silence in Cremona (libretto by Mark Campbell) was premiere in May 2022 at the Teatro Ponchielli in Cremona and it will performed in the fall 2023 produced by the Center For Contemporary Opera in New York and in Cremona.

Mr. Scarcella Perino is teaching Italian language in his second year in the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, a Clinical Assistant Professor at the NYU Italian Department and a Scholar in Residence at the American Institute for Verdi Studies. He has been the recipient of numerous high honors and awards, including an International Competition for Children’s Opera and the Musical Analysis International Competition N. Slonimskij. He studied with the Slovenian pianist Sonja Pahor to whom he dedicated his first of his 5 Piano Sonatas. He holds degrees in Piano from the Conservatory “Corelli” in Messina and in Composition from the Conservatory Martini in Bologna. He studied composition at Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome with Azio Corghi, in Milan and in Parma at Accademia Petrassi, and also Conducting at the Juilliard School of Music.

He graduated from the University of Bologna with a degree in Musicology and he taught Music Analysis at the Arturo Toscanini Foundation in Parma. Every summer, Roberto teaches a course on Italian Opera at NYU in Florence and in New York.

www.scarcellaperino.com

Gianluca Margheri

BARITONE

Born in Florence, Gianluca Margheri began to study musical dramaturgy before studying singing at the Cherubini Conservatory of Music in Florence. In 2009 he won the Toti dal Monte International Competition in Treviso, and debuted as Villotto in Haydn’s La vera costanza under Jesús López-Cobos at Teatro Real Madrid, at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège and the theaters of Saint-Étienne, Rouen and Reggio Emilia.

Recent highlights include his debut in the title role of Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Hungarian State Opera), Rossini’s Stabat Mater (Opera Firenze), Alidoro in Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Teatro Massimo, Palermo), Purcell’s The Fairy Queen (Hungarian State Opera), the title role in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (Theater St Gallen), Asdrubale in Rossini’s La Pietra del Paragone, and the Count in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (Teatro Lirico di Cagliari), and Talbot in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda in Riga. He sang Asdrubale under Daniele Rustioni for his Rossini Opera Festival Pesaro debut, and Garibalda in Handel’s Rodelinda for his Gran Teatre del Liceu debut in Barcelona. He has also sung Raimondo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (Teatro Petruzzelli, Bari), Apollo in Gluck’s Alceste and Moralèz in Spontini’s Fernand Cortez (Opera Firenze), Vivaldi’s Bajazet at Irish National Opera & Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London. Lord Sidney in Rossini’s Viaggio a Reims (Lisbon) Vivaldi’s Tamerlano in a European tournée with Ottavio Dantone and Accademia Bizantina and he created the title role in Silvia Colasanti’s Minotauro world premiere (Spoleto Festival). 

He is an enthusiastic concert singer with a repertoire encompassing works by Charpentier, Handel, Mozart, Fauré and Brahms.

Conductors & Directors he has collaborated with include James Conlon, Zubin Mehta, Marco Armillato, Friedrich Haider, Riccardo Frizza, Andrea Battistoni, Roland Boer, Robert Carsen, Graham Vick, Peter Whelan, Jonathan Webb, Gabriele Ferro, Claus Guth, PierLuigi Pizzi, Ottavio Dantone and many other

Trio Kanon

CHAMBER MUSIC MUSICIANS

Trio Kanon, (whose name refers to the canon but it is also the union of two Japanese words: “Ka” – “Flower” and “On”– “Music”, literally meaning “Flourishing Music”) was born in the summer of 2012 when Lena, Alessandro and Diego decided to share their love for chamber music, by studying as a group under the guide of the Trio di Parma (Alberto Miodini, Ivan Rabaglia, Enrico Bronzi) at the International Chamber Music Academy in Duino, founded by the Trio di Trieste in 1989. 

The three musicians had previously studied individually with outstanding teachers as Maria Grazia Bellocchio, Salvatore Accardo and Rocco Filippini in important institutions such as the Stauffer Academy in Cremona and the Santa Cecilia International Academy in Rome. 

As a trio they also studied with Alexander Lonquich at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, with Oliver Wille at the Centre Européen de Musique de Chambre ProQuartet of Paris and in Vienna at the Internationale Sommer Akademie 2015 (where the trio was rewarded as Best ensemble, winning the “Chamber Music Award” sponsored by the Haydn Institute and by the “University of music”).

Trio Kanon gained international credibility by winning many prizes, including the 1st Prize, the Audience Prize and 2 Special Prizes at the International Chamber Music Competition of Pinerolo & Torino 2018 (member of the World Federation of International Music Competition). The award hadn’t been won by an Italian group for 17 years.

The Trio played in many important venues, such as Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Sala Casella and the Cappella Paolina of the Quirinale Palace in Rome, the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, the Sala dei Notari in Perugia, the Teatro Vittoria in Turin, Palazzo Ducale and Palazzo Te in Mantua for the Mantova Chamber Music Festival; they also performed in England, Croatia, Austria, China and the USA, always meeting unanimous success with audiences and critics. 

In 2015, the ensemble was invited as resident group at the Snape Maltings’ famous Aldeburgh Music Festival, where they performed twice at the Jubilee Hall.

In 2019 Trio Kanon went on tour in Japan, holding concerts at the Music Salon Amadeus in Kobe, the Aqua Cultural Center in Toyonaka where they played Beethoven Triple Concert and at the Phoenix Hall in Osaka.

In 2019 they also had the privilege to work with Alfred Brendel, attending a masterclass – promoted by Associazione Mozart Italia in Modica – on Schubert’s repertoire.

They recorded works by Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann and  Dvořák for “Amadeus” magazine,  “Movimento Classical” label and “Warner Classics”.

Paolo Zagni

CLARINET

Paolo Zagni was born in 1999 in Cremona. Since September 2019 he has been attending the Piacenza Conservatory in the class of maestro Paolo Beltramini. From January 2021 he began a specialization course at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole with Maestro Giovanni Riccucci.
He has participated in various Masterclasses, held by great international soloists, including Philippe Cuper, Richard Stolzman, Calogero Palermo, Riccardo Crocilla, Corrado Giuffredi, Lorenzo Coppola, Giovanni Riccucci and Stephan Veermersh.
He won the first prize at the E. Arisi competition in 2014/2015.
In 2021 he won the scholarship awarded by the Piacenza Conservatory for chamber music performing Mendelssohn’s concert pieces No. 1 and 2 for clarinet, basset horn and piano in the version for two clarinets.
Since 2022 he has been collaborating with the Filharmonie, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Florence.