Andrea Scartazzini and Luigi Chiaramonte
Photo: LAConsulting
Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini (* 1971) lives in Basel and is a composer of contemporary music. He studied German and Italian at the University of Basel and composition with Rudolf Kelterborn, Wolfgang Rihm and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He was a lecturer at the University of Witten Herdecke, an artist at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai and a scholarship holder at the Villa Concordia artists' center in Bamberg. He is currently a jury member of the Basel Composition Competition and composer in residence at the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra. An important part of his work is his oeuvre for music theatre: Edward II (Deutsche Oper Berlin), Der Sandmann (Oper Frankfurt, Theater Basel) WUT (Theater Bern, Theater Erfurt). He is currently working on a large orchestral cycle with reference to Gustav Mahler. His music is characterized by high expressivity, harmonic richness and formal clarity. www.scartazzini.com
Photo: Luigi Chiaramonte
Luigi Chiaramonte (* 1994) is a tenor and choir director from Basel, graduating with a Master of Performance from Christian Hilz at the Bern University of the Arts in spring 2024. The tenor regularly performs in concert throughout Switzerland and Europe, and has sung at the Kolarac SRB Concert Hall in Belgrade (St Matthew Passion), in Kempten DE (Evangelist, Christmas Oratorio) and in Bergamo IT (Evangelist, St John Passion). He has also appeared on stage as Acis (Acis and Galathea) and at the Bernhardtheater (R. Stolz: Grüezi). Luigi is making his debut as Tamino with the Bern Medical Orchestra. He is also an active member of various vocal ensembles such as Verba Vocalis, Larynx and others, with whom he has performed at the Gare du Nord in Basel, among other venues. He works as a choirmaster in the Bern region and is the musical director of Voice Art Thun, among others.
Project
Libretto adaptation and setting of "Das Nonnenturnier"
In this project, we are adapting and setting the late medieval tale "The Tournament of the Nuns" to music for a chamber orchestra. The humorous, socially critical tale will be rewritten into a modern libretto and interpreted musically.
The aim is to make the historical material accessible to today's audiences by combining traditional music-theatrical stylistic devices and medieval references with contemporary compositional techniques. Together with my mentor, I develop the dramaturgy, work on the orchestral sound language, intensively study the craft of orchestration and explore various compositional means to differentiate moods, characters, motifs and storylines in an immersive and characteristic way.
