BIOGRAFIA
LUCA TESSADRELLI
Composer, orchestral conductor and professor
He began his first musical studies with his mother, the opera singer Ermelinda Pescatori and from 1971 to 1977, he studied baroque tenor recorder with Giuseppe Rizzolini, playing, also as a soloist, with the I Piccoli Musici orchestra of Brescia.
At the “L. Marenzio” in Brescia undertook his compositional studies with the teachers Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Elisabetta Brusa, Antonio Giacometti, Giorgio Mezzanotte, Gilberto Serembe and Paolo Ugoletti, for whom he felt a deep gratitude.
In 1982, at the invitation of Agostino Orizio, he follows the works of the XIV International Review of Contemporary Music (Brescia-Bergamo Piano Festival), in contact, for 10 days, with the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, who affectionately transmitted some of his compositional techniques.
His first works are based on the rethinking, in a modern key, of the modality (Homage to Ravel, for strings, 1979, Concerto for piano and orchestra from a sacred theme, 1980,
Settimino for flute, clarinet, string quartet and harp, 1981, Concatenazione I (1983) for orchestra, Contrapuntal Geometries (1985) for string orchestra, Repercussio Modalis for piano and plucked orchestra (1989).
In 1990 he made the children's opera Kamillo Kromo, Dimensione Onirica for string orchestra and Tre citazioni dal Cantico dei Cantici, for two sopranos and string quintet, a piece dedicated to Azio Corghi.
In 1990, CRT of Milan commissioned the music for Il Gioco del Diablo, directed by Claudia Botta, represented in Italy and Brazil.
In collaboration with Domenico Clapasson he records his own piano production relating to the decade 1980-1990 (Quadrivium Editions of Perugia): Concatenatione, "...E forme e Gesti...", Sette speculazioni sulla Melanconia, "... E apparve una Cattedrale di Cristallo" and Requiem, receiving a flattering review from Peter Bucwasser (The Magazine, December 1993).
In 1991 he won 1st prize at the first edition of the “Valentino Caracciolo”, Symphonic Composition Competition in Rome, with Quattro Posludi, performed and broadcast several times by RAI.
In 1993 he won the 2nd prize (with mention of merit) at the International Tribune of Composers held in Paris under the patronage of Unesco, with the piece A Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day, for 5 female voices, flute, cello and harp, performed several times under the guidance of the composer and broadcast in numerous European countries. Subsequently, in 1999 in the "International Journal of Musicology", Germany, an indepth analysis appeared, edited by Marco Bizzarini.
Luca Tessadrelli was a researcher for three years at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Brescia (Department of Mathematics), where he conducted studies aimed at deepening the understanding of mental processes through the use of electronic computers. In 1995 he edited the book Mathematical Models of Musical Communication in Thought by Giovanni Melzi for the La Scuola Publishing House.
In 1992, commissioned by the Catholic University of Brescia, he composed Fractal Music, for piano and computer, a four-part work dedicated to Marco Morocutti. In the same year, for RAI RADIOTRE, he performed and recorded the compositions Alta Elegia d’Amore e Morte, Musica Reservata, Flatus Vocis and Satyricomicx I and II, for female choir and small ensemble.
In the Milanese context, he composed, on commission from various organizations: Senex et Puer, for orchestra, 1993, Sala Puccini, AngelicuMusica orchestra, conductor Antonio Ballista; Post nubila Phoebus, for string orchestra, 1994, Teatro Nuovo, conductor Simone Fermani; Variazioni sulla Bellezza, 1996, for electronics, commissioned by AGON / Centro Studi Armando Gentilucci and premiered at the Skinnskatteberg Festival (Sweden); Tirsi and Clori, orchestration and elaboration from Monteverdi, 1996, AngelicuMusica, Sala Puccini.
He composed the original music for the film Nostos, directed by Franco Piavoli, receiving an award from the Italian Ministry of Education. A recent publication by Filippo Schillaci, "The sky, the water and the cat", Publisher ARTDIGILAND, 2020, contains the original handwritten music by Luca Tessadrelli in an appendix.
In 1994 he composed Eliot's Cantata, Solstitio brumali (The time of tension between dying and birth), for soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, cello and harp, with texts taken by Thomas Stearns Eliot.
In 1995 Tessadrelli founded the Scherzo Armonico Cultural Association, dedicated for years to the performance of vocal and instrumental chamber repertoire, performing in numerous concerts as conductor and arranger. He composes the Experimental Opera La Messa della Misericordia, for 15 actors-singers and electronics, repeated 12 times. In 2019, at the invitation of the Normale di Pisa, he presents the modus operandi adopted for the genesis and staging of the musical score.
In 1996, at the invitation of the Ordre Monastic d'Avalon (Belvis, France), he composed the Esoteric Cantata Il Viaggiatore Innamorato (Parsifal in search of the Self), initiatory journey in eight sound stages.
For the Teatro Regio di Parma, 1997/98 opera season, he oversaw the new instrumentation of the opera Hansel and Gretel (directed by Lorenzo Arruga), repeated several times and with Tessadrelli in the role of performer (electronic keyboards). Tessadrelli's version was recently revived (March 2016) by the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
In 1999 he composed the spiritual cycle of 14 pieces Nuovi Antichissimi Mondi (Ballads of the Invisible Song), performed several times, performed and recorded on CD by the pianist Domenico Clapasson, by the narrator Luciano Bertoli, with paintings by Felice Martinelli.
Commissioned by the painter Rinaldo Turati, in 2001, he composed the cycle dedicated to nature Reserare Portas, for soprano, countertenor, tenor, bass and electronics, premiered at the Roccavignale Castle, Savona.
Significant scores of sacred music are: the Oratorio Ludovico Pavoni, diary of God and the Opera-Oratorio Filippo, uomo di Luce, for solos, choir and orchestra (2007); Stabat Mater I, for mixed choir of eight voices and orchestra chamber (1999); Stabat Mater II, for soprano, alto, tenor, bass and electronics (2000); the Cantata in 7 parts Inaccessibile Luce, for narrating voice, tenor, flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon (2011); Officina Dei, for mixed choir and piano (2016); Missa “Initiati Canunt”, for mixed choir, choir soloists and small orchestra (2017).
Tessadrelli has composed three symphonies for orchestra: The Cross and the Angel (1998), Trepidatio (2005), Degli scarti (2007).
At the invitation of the Diaghilev Opera Ballet Festival, in May 2011 he went to Perm (Russia), for the world premiere of Vater Unser, by composer George von Albrecht, which he orchestrated and partially rebuilt.
With the director Candida Toaldo and the CUT "La Stanza" he produced many plays, including Don Giovanni and Donna Giovanna (1997), with performances in Italy and Tunisia (Monastir, El Jem) and Berlicche's letters (1999), represented in various Italian cities.
The soprano and writer Virginia Magatelli presented, in 2008, an articulated reflection and documentation on the relationship between music and text recurring in the composer: Eliot's Cantata. The use of the female voice in Luca Tessadrelli's Third Practice.
In 2013 he composed Cantu Smaraudu (Canto Smeraldo), Music for Miryam and Guido, for viola da gamba, harp, oboe, percussion and string orchestra, a piece performed with great success in Parma by the MG_INC Orchestra, conducted by Pierpaolo Maurizzi.
In 2014 Tessadrelli composed the monumental 12 Variations on a Theme by Ross Quaresmini, A sound colloquium between the spirit of “Pop” and “Classic”, for large orchestra, narrator and Sufi dancer.
In 2015 he composed the Opera in two acts, Il Dolore e la Bellezza, dedicated to the coloratura soprano Yue Wu, for which he will compose, in 2019, the Sequenza Glassarmonica, for soprano and piano, dedicated to Benjamin Franklin to all astronauts, past, present and future.
The collaboration with the German cellist Dorothea von Albrecht is significant, from which the Concerto (the two souls) for cello and orchestra, 4 Dialogues for solo cello and Tango vigoroso, for cello and piano, commissioned by City of Literature, Heidelberg and performed, are born, successfully, in Heidelberg (2017) and Mannheim (2018).
In 2018, Aldebaran Editions publishes the book The cultured elaboration of popular songs. Musical analysis and symbolism. Luciano Berio, Folk Songs. ANALYSIS AND REFLECTIONS series, which gets excellent reviews from specialist critics.
In 2019, troubled by the terrible fire of the Parisian Cathedral of Notre-Dame, he composed 15/04/2019: Remote Sacred Fire, for symphony orchestra, a work dedicated to Daniel Espen.
In the same year he composed Romance de la casada infiel, for two lateral sopranos, female choir and guitar, based on a text by Garcia Lorca, premiered in Gargnano, Church of S. Francesco.
In 2020, with the pianist Giulia Pomarelli he recorded Aula 24 - Spiral-shaped Chronovisions, 24 Exercises and Counterpoints, at the service of compositional and executive teaching. Some tracks from the collection have been selected by FEBO FILMS for the videos of the Chinese stylist Yang Ming Ming.
Pianist Daniel Espen, from 2016-2021, has performed, by Tessadrelli, in important Concerts in the United States and in China, the Metropolitan Studies and the IV Sonata (of the Tetrachords). The songs received an excellent critical review on International Piano Magazine UK, November / December 2016.
In 2020 he composed, on the occasion of the restoration of the Damiani-Tonoli organ in Toscolano, Lotta between Jacob and the Angel (I - III - I), performed with great success, in the church of Santi Pietro e Paolo by Gerardo Chimini, for the which Tessadrelli had already composed and dedicated the 5 Mirmecodanze for piano (1999), successfully performed at the Brescia and Bergamo International Piano Festival.
In 2021 he composed the Mystery in three parts S. Angela Merici, for two narrative voices, solos, children's choir, virile voices choir and small orchestra, based on his own libretto taken from a biography of the Saint by Sidrid Undset, Nobel Prize for Literature, 1928.
Commissioned by the Amici della Lirica di Piacenza, he realizes the critical version of the opera in four acts Pier Luigi Farnese by Costantino Palumbo, with libretto by Arrigo Boito.
Luca Tessadrelli's compositions have been performed, with great success with audiences and critics, in many European countries, in the United States, South America, Russia and China.
Several times president and member of the jury in various international composition competitions, Luca Tessadrelli also plays the role of chairman and speaker at numerous conferences.
Luca Tessadrelli mainly publishes his works for the Casa Musicale Sonzogno and Aldebaran Editions.
Luca Tessadrelli is Professor of Composition at the "A. Boito" Conservatory of Parma and currently Coordinator of the Department of Composition and Conducting.
The validity of his teaching method has led many of his students to achieve prestigious international and national awards in various compositional competitions.
Tessadrelli has to his credit numerous publications, radio and television recordings, CDs and DVDs of his own music.