NEWS

October 24 marked the 91st anniversary of Luciano Berio’s birth. This year the date coincided with another important anniversary: the world première of Coro, one of the cornerstones of Berio’s oeuvre, which was performed for the first time forty years ago, on the 24th of October 1976 in Donaueschingen with the composer himself conducting the WDR Rundfunkchor and Rundfunkorchester Köln (for more information on the work click here).
We wish to celebrate this double "birthday" with a selection of documents that confirm the importance of Coro for Berio’s poetics: «The work deals with the problem perhaps more deeply rooted in me: put together, give an order to seemingly disparate things», highlighting the idea of Coro as an encounter of different cultures and periods, as a dialogue between different techniques and styles that merge without ever losing their individuality.
The homage includes the full audio track of Coro as well as excerpts from Luciano Berio’s writings and interviews; manuscript pages; and a letter from the composer to his future wife and dedicatee of the composition - Talia Pecker Berio - written during the rehearsals of the première.

The concerts featuring Luciano Berio’s music continue during the end of 2016. Here follows a selection of the most outstanding events (for a complete list, see the Concert calendar).

Récit (Chemins VII) is scheduled in Cologne (October 28) and Essen (October 30) featuring the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln and saxophonist Lutz Koppetsch conducted by Brad Lubman. Another concert with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, with Christophe Desjardins and conducted by Emilio Pomàrico, is the performance of Chemins II in Cologne (November 5). The Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart will perform A-Ronne at the Essen Philharmonie (November 5). Naturale is scheduled in Kalgenfurt with violist Ernst Theuerkauf and percussionist Gerhard Gruber (November 19), and in Budapest, with Tabea Zimmermann and Aurél Holló (November 20). In Buenos Aires, the Teatro San Martín ensemble of contemporary music, featuring Coro Diapasón Sur and the speaker Rafael Spregelburd, conducted by Santiago Santero, will perform Laborintus II; the same evening, Pablo Fenoglio will perform Sequenza V for trumpet (November 20). In Paris, the Orchestre du Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris with pianist Théo Fouchennere, conducted by Jean-Philippe Wurtz, will perform points on the curves to find for piano and 22 instruments (November 30).

The concerts featuring Luciano Berio’s music continue during the Spring 2016. Here follows a selection of the most outstanding events from March to June (for a complete list, see the Concert calendar).
On March 13 Sinfonia is performed by Synergy Vocals and London Symphony Orchestra conducted by François-Xavier Roth (Barbican Hall, London). On March 18 the Latvian Radio Choir will perform A-Ronne (Music House “Daile”, Riga). On March 20 and 22 two concerts are scheduled in London with the Nash Ensemble: on 20th, the Sequenzas I, II, IV and VII will be performed at the Italian Cultural Institute; on 22th the concert will take place at the Wigmore Hall, featuring Sequenza VIII and Naturale. On April 15 Simon Krečič will conduct the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra in Rendering (Philharmonic, Marjan Kozina Hall, Ljubljana).

Umberto Eco has left us. Under media spotlights by now dimmed, the Centro Studi Luciano Berio wishes to remember this great protagonist of international culture by recalling the principal stages of the long personal and professional journey that tied him to Luciano Berio.
The friendship between Umberto Eco and Luciano Berio began at the outset of the 1950s, when both worked for the Milanese headquarters of RAI on the Corso Sempione. The years immediately preceding and succeeding the foundation of the Studio di Fonologia were, on the creative and personal levels, significant for both: indeed it was to Berio, and to the research conducted in those years in the environment of the Milanese electronic studio, that Eco owed his acquaintance with the Cours de linguistique générale by Saussure and with Principes de phonologie by Troubetzkoy, volumes «borrowed from the Studio di Fonologia, and which naturally I [Eco] have never returned through right of conquest.» It was again in the milieu of the electronic studio that ever new commonalities of life and work were established, ones that extended also to Roberto Leydi and Cathy Berberian.