I Barocchisti

The ensemble I Barocchisti was founded in 1998 by Diego Fasolis to carry on the heritage of the Società cameristica di Lugano, which had devoted itself since the 1950s under the direction of Edwin Löhrer to rediscovering vocal and instrumental works from the Renaissance and Baroque eras. The configuration of the Barocchisti can vary from four to forty musicians, according to the repertoire; the ensemble’s members are renowned specialists in historically informed performance practice from Switzerland and Italy and also frequently perform as soloists, having acquired relevant experience from their work with such groups as the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico, The English Concert, and the Accademia Bizantina. Together with the Coro della Radio Svizzera, the Ensemble regularly gives concerts in Lugano and the Italian part of Switzerland and also tours across Europe and the United States. I Barocchisti have performed many times at the Salzburg Festival, where they took part in 2015 in productions of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride and Handel’s Semele. In the summer and fall of 2016 they will tour with Cecilia Bartoli in Bellini’s Norma. In recent years they have produced numerous CDs featuring works by Handel, Vivaldi, Bach, Scarlatti, Paisiello, Mozart, and Agostino Steffani; their recording of Steffani’s Stabat Mater won the International Classical Music Award in 2014. For their Steffani project Mission the ensemble also received an Echo Klassik Award. The musicians frequently collaborate with renowned instrumental virtuosos and vocal starsfrom the early music scene, including, recently, the recorder player Maurice Steger, the soprano Julia Lezh-
neva, the countertenors Max Emanuel Cencic and Philippe Jaroussky and – as in this evening’s LUCERNE FESTIVAL performance – the mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli. 

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 10 September 2012 with Cecilia Bartoli in an all-Vivaldi program conduced by Diego Fasolis.

August 2016