Francesco D’Orazio,
Francesco Abbrescia
Violin, electric violin and live electronics
> Francesco D’Orazio and Francesco Abbrescia in concert on the IIC Melbourne Vimeo channel: click here
Programme
Pasquale Corrado (1979)
Dal segno d’ombra (2016) Violino elettrico a cinque corde ed live electronics (8’)
Gianvincenzo Cresta (1968)
Voci incroci (2013) Violino e live electronics (16’)
Alessandro Solbiati
Sonata (Tiresia e la Pizia) (2013-2020) versione per violino e live electronics (18’)
Ivan Fedele
Suite francese VI Violino amplificato (16’)
Francesco D’Orazio was born in Bari, he graduated in violin and viola under the guidance of his father, specializing with Denes Zsigmondy at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and Yair Kless at the Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv. He graduated in Literature with a thesis in History of Music on the composer Virgilio Mortari. He has held concerts with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, the Berliner Symphonikers, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of ‘The de France, the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra, the Saarlandischer Rundfunk, the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, the Byzantine Academy, the Montis Regalis Academy, the Ensemble Court-Circuite of Paris, directed, among others, by Lorin Maazel, Sakari Oramo, Hubert Soudant, Pascal Rophé and Luciano Berio.
His vast repertoire ranges from ancient music performed with original instruments to classical, romantic and contemporary music. For more than twenty years he has been the violinist of the L’Astrée ensemble in Turin with whom he regularly holds concerts with baroque and classical repertoire.Among the numerous composers who have written works for violin and orchestra for him include Ivan Fedele, Terry Riley, Brett Dean, Fabio Vacchi, Michele dall’Ongaro, Michael Nyman, Vito Palumbo, Marcello Panni. Of particular importance was his long collaboration with Luciano Berio of whom he performed Divertimento for string trio in world premiere at the Strasbourg Festival, and also Sequenza VIII at the Salzburg Festival and Choral for violin and orchestra at the Cité de la Musique in Paris and at the Auditorium Nacional de Musica in Madrid directed by the author.
He has performed throughout Europe, North and South America, Mexico, Australia, China and Japan and made recordings for Decca, Naive, Hyperion, Stradivarius and Amadeus. He has been a guest of prestigious institutions such as the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Philharmonie in Berlin, the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, Royal Albert Hall, Center de Musique Baroque de Versailles, South Bank Center in London and the Festival Proms in London, Cervantino in Mexico, MiTo, Presences of Radio France, Ravello, Istanbul, Senese Music Week, Montpellier, Ravenna, Postdam, Salzburg, Stresa, Tanglewood, Venice Biennale. In 2010 Francesco D’Orazio was awarded the XXIX Abbiati Award of the Italian Music Critics as “Best Soloist” of the year. He plays the violin “Comte de Cabriac” by Giuseppe Guarneri, built in Cremona in 1711 and a Jean Baptiste Vuillaume made in Paris in 1863.
Francesco Abbrescia studied piano, singing and choir conducting and graduated in Experimental Composition (Gianni Francia) at the “N. Piccinni “in Bari. He obtained the First Level Diploma with Honors in Music and New Technologies with a thesis entitled” Computer-assisted Instrumental Music Composition “and the Second Level Diploma in Electronic Music with Honors and special mention with a thesis entitled “Feature Extraction algorithms from audio signals and applications in music analysis and composition” (Francesco Scagliola) at the Bari Conservatory.
He attended choral conducting courses with the masters Antonella Arnese, Filippo Maria Bressan and Giovanni Acciai and studied singing by participating in specialized courses with the Masters Antonio Albarosa (Gregorian chant), Steve Woodbury (vocality applied to the Baroque repertoire), Marco Berrini (J.S. Bach’s motets, performance practice and concertation), Giovanni Acciai (The Italian madrigal, performance practice and concertation – the solmisazione by Guido d’Arezzo – unpublished repertoire of the Neapolitan School).
He performed the electronics and supervised the sound direction for Brett Dean’s “Electric Preludes” (electric violin, electronics and string orchestra) at the Venice Biennale 2018 (Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento, violin F. D’Orazio, director Vito Ceccherini). He was assistant operator in interactive electronics and multimedia in the film music composition course of Luis Bacalov for the summer courses of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana (2005 – 2014) and assistant director of sound (F.Scagliola) for the first absolute of the dramatic-musical dialogue ¿Pia? by Azio Corghi (Siena 2004).
In 2007 he founded and directed until 2011, the “Goitre” female vocal group with stable piano, specializing in romantic and 20th century repertoires, with which he performed in various Italian cities and recorded a CD.
From 2004 to 2011 he was permanent artistic director of the annual review of contemporary music “Musiche Nuove” of the Harmonia association. He collaborates with internationally renowned composers (Ivan Fedele, Michele Dall’Ongaro, Gianvincenzo Cresta, Pasquale Corrado, Vito Palumbo) and performs as a computer performer in Italy and abroad alongside musicians such as Francesco D’Orazio, Nicola Fiorino, Giampaolo Nuti and Filippo Lattanzi. He is a member of Sin [x] Thésis, a research and production group of the electronic music class of his own conservatory, founded and directed by F. Scagliola, with whom he has performed in numerous concerts in Italy and abroad.
His works have been carried out in numerous events all over the world: ARS ELECTRONICA (Linz, Austria), ICMC (Ljubljana, Slovenia), FILE (São Paulo, Brazil), ÉuCuE (Montréal, Canada), FIMU (Belfort, France).
He won the 2008/9 National Arts Award section. Electronic Music with the AudioVideo piece of his own composition “Study on the intonation of the flesh”.