February 2008

Performance in Saarbrücken, Germany

The viola player Tatjana Masurenko will perform Lombardi´s Bab for viola (2003) on February 12 (9 pm) in the frame of the Forum Neue Musik. It is possible to hear the concert with works for viola by Bruno Maderna, Dimitri Terzakis, Aristides Strongylis, Georg Philipp Telemann and Georg Friedrich Händel/Toshio Hosokawa as Live stream: Website Saarländischer Rundfunk.

World Premiere of Terra for large orchestra

On Friday, February 1st 2008, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai will present Luca Lombardi´s new work Terra for large orchestra in Torino in Auditorium Rai Arturo Toscanini. Franck Ollu will be the conductor. The premiere is broadcasted via radio and internet on April 20, 8.30 pm: Website Rai Radio 3 (Button ascolta RADIO 3 in diretta at the top of the site.)

Luca Lombardi writes about the work:

For biographical reasons, I have an Italian and German background, but I’d rather think of myself as a European composer. The nations that belong to the European Union are becoming more and more regions – each one rich of important traditions – of a single entity. In the same way my music is unitary – being the creation of a single person – but enriched by different "regions". My musical experiences, from avant-garde to popular music, allowed me to develop a language which is both plural and unitary at the same time, a language to be drawn upon according to the different projects.
By entitling this composition Terra (Earth, but also Soil, Ground, or Land) I thought of the different meanings of the Italian term: the planet we live in, the solid part of the earth’s surface, the land as a nation, and last but not least one of the four elements. The initial stimulus came from the second meaning and its material implications (underground telluric movements).
Part of this composition was written while I was travelling in Israel, a "land" I particularly love. There I considered naming the piece "Eretz", in Hebrew, which in the combination "eretz israel" means Land of Israel. For this very reason I included two quotations from Israeli melodies: the first one from the song "Live in this land", the second one taken from "Hope", the State of Israel’s anthem. My hope is that this state will keep existing, for its own good as well as for the good of its neighbours and ours.
Can such social and philosophical commitment permeate instrumental works then? I firmly believe in the difference of genres: an opera is different from an oratorio, as it is obviously different from an instrumental work. This being said, I believe that behind each composition – for solo instrument, a string quartet or an opera – there is the same motivation giving sense to my work: to write a self-sufficient piece, needing no ideological or aesthetical "crutches", the evidence of a man whose music is involved in the matters of his times. Terra is dedicated to Luigi Taglioni, publisher, friend and precious interlocutor.

December 2007

Portrait Concert in Genoa

The Nomos String Quartet and the soprano Alda Caiello are the interpreters of two works by Lombardi: La Canzone di Greta for strinq quartet and the second string quartet Warum? are combined with Robert Schumann´s quartet Op. 41 No. 1. The concert is part of the concert row Concerti Ritratto di compositori contemporanei in Genoa.

Thursday, December 20: Casa Paganini, piazza S. Maria in Passione 34, 8 pm (Introduction to the concert with Lombardi at 6 pm)

Concert Folder

A New Trio in Bremen

On Tuesday, December 4, the young and outstanding Lombardi Trio will present the premiere of a new Trio in Bremen. The work is commissioned by the Philharmonic Society Bremen and is supported by the Waldemar Koch Foundation. Leonard Elschenbroich (cello), Eric Lamb (flute) and Konstantin Arro (piano) will combine the premiere with works by Carl Maria von Weber (Trio in g op. 63 for flute, cello and piano), George Crumb (Vox Balaenae) and Einstein Dialog for cello and flute composed by Lombardi in 2005.

Tuesday, December 4: Die Glocke, Kleiner Saal, 8 pm