After the success of Sound of stones, the Tuscan Festival of Ancient Music returns to Pisa from August 30th to September 1st 2019, curated by the Fondazione Teatro di Pisa and the ensemble in residence Auser Musici with the artistic direction of Carlo Ipata and the contribution of Pisa Foundation and the Municipality of Cascina. Some of the most suggestive places of the Pisan Romanesque meet ancient music, in a suggestive journey through the voice and the multiple declinations of vocality, between sacred and profane.

 

The title of the 24th edition will be 'Le Nuove Musiche', taken from the first collection of accompanied monodies written and published by Giulio Caccini in 1602. And it is precisely the monody, the vocality, the protagonist of this edition of the festival: from the archaic form of the Cantigas of S. Maria, passing through the sacred and profane declinations and the 'new Pisan music' proposed by Auser Musici, up to the modern reading of the duo Musica Nuda, formed by Petra Magoni and Ferruccio Spinetti, which will close the festival with a path on the song form, from Giulio Caccini to the poetic and cursed forms of Piero Ciampi, a historical overview conducted in perfect Nude Music style.

 

Among the other guest artists, Micrologus (vocal and instrumental ensemble specializing in medieval music) and Giovanni Bellini (theorbo). Combining the concerts with a guided tour in the morning every day, the scenarios of the festival will be especially those of the churches and basilicas that overlook the course of the Arno River: the pure solitude of San Piero a Grado, the simplicity all 'Romanesque' of Sant ' Andrea where Galileo Galilei was baptized, as well as the ancient complex of the Republican Arsenals, the Gothic delight of Santa Maria della Spina and, outside the town, the Verrucana stone of the parish of the Saints Ippolito and Cassiano in San Casciano. Of note, Sunday 1 September, the guided tour of the Museum of Ancient Ships, inaugurated on 16 June after twenty years of research and restoration: 5000 square meters and a millennium of Mediterranean history.

 

All the music performed in the unpublished Pisan concert by Auser Musici (Friday, August 30, 7:30 pm) comes from the Alamanno Music Fund owned by the Agostini della Seta family who kindly allowed its use. For the cataloging and the study of the Musical Fund Alamanno a scholarship will be announced, fruit of the collaboration between Auser Musici and the Department of excellence of History, Archeology, Geography, Art and Entertainment (SAGAS) of the University of Florence.