In January the 52nd season of the AML (Lucchese Music Association) chamber music concerts starts. These end in March and present ten concerts on Sunday afternoon at 5 pm in the ISSM Boccherini auditorium, Piazza del Suffragio. The program also includes fourteen lectures and film screenings.
On Sunday, January 31st Ivano Battiston and Gabriele Ragghianti (see photo) give a recital with the special alchemy of sound produced by accordion and double bass, two instruments able to produce a fascinating range of colours and ideas. There’s a piece for accordion composed by Battiston and inspired by traditional Balkan music, pieces by Giovanni Bottesini, the great double-bass player who turned the instrument into an effective soloist, pieces by Astor Piazzolla and music by the Bulgarian double-bass player Emil Tabakov. Finally, two pieces by Federico Favali from Lucca. The world is on fire (music for burning bass) for double bass (world premiere) and Aforismi per evocare la terra (aphorisms to evoke the earth). The first piece was written in 2015 for double-bass player Gabriele Ragghianti while Aphorisms to evoke the earth draws inspiration from the reinterpretation Favali made from a fragment by the Lucchese composer Giovanni Lorenzo Gregori (1663- 1740).
Federico Favali is composer-in-residence at the Lucchese Music Association for 2016. After studying piano and graduating from Bologna’s DAMS conservatoire he has had performances of his music in various Italian cities and abroad. After a Master’s degree in composition at King’s College London, he is currently doing a PhD at the University of Birmingham (UK) with Michael Zev Gordon. At the same time he is perfecting composition at the La Spezia’s “G. Puccini” conservatoire under the guidance of Andrea Nicoli.
For info on tickets and program see www.associazionemusicalelucchese.it