"In
the hands of the ardent Emanuele Arciuli everything
has been conceived not as your conveniently neutral
pitch-generator and theory tester but for the
piano as its glorious self. " Richard
Buell, The Boston Globe
EMANUELE ARCIULI
Emanuele Arciuli has established himself as one of the most original and interesting performers of the new concert scene. His repertoire goes from Bach to contemporary music, with a special relationship to the United States. He is highly estimated by american composers and mantains close and fruitful collaborations with many of them.
He gives regular recitals at major music institutions and festivals, among these La Scala, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Teatro San Carlo (Naples), Verona Arena, La Fenice (Venice), the Rai National Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Festwochen, Milano Musica, Torino Settembre Musica, Brescia and Bergamo International Piano Festival, Teatro Carlo Fenice (Genoa), Miller Theater (New York), Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro), and Miami Piano Festival.
He collaborates with many orchestra directors, among these Petr Altrichter, Marc Andreae, Yoel Levi, James MacMillan, Anton Nanut, Kazushi Ono, Zoltan Pesko, Stefan Reck, Arturo Tamayo and Mario Venzago. He performed (with Valede, Libetta, and the Rai Symphonic Orchestra) at the Venice Biennale in Claudio Ambrosini's Plurimo awarded with the Golden Lion 2007.
Among the composers who have written for Arciuli are Michael Nyman (Piano Concerto n. 2), George Crumb (Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik), Lorenzo Ferrero (Concerto n. 2 for piano and orchestra), Filippo Del Corno (Not in my name for piano and orchestra), Michele dall’Ongaro (Concerto n. 2), Carlo Boccadoro (Achrome for piano and orchestra), Brent Michael Davids (Mohicans) and Louis W. Ballard (Cherokee). In 2008, he has played Louis W. Ballard's Indiana Concerto with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.
Round Midnight Variations, a group of 16 compositions that in 2001 were written expressively for Arciuli, has gained much interest by international critics and can be considered one of the most significant contemporary piano collections. Involved composers include Babbitt, Rzewski, Torke, Daugherty, Bolcom and Harbison.
His interest for the native american culture has inspired a special project that involves the major native composers (Davids, Quincy, Croall, Chacon) in piano pieces dedicated to Arciuli (who executed these pieces in november 2008 at the Washington Smithsonian Museum).
He has recorded many CDs for Chandos, Bridge, Vai and Stradivarius, among these Gates to Everywhere with music from C. Bley, F. Hersch e C. Corea; the complete piano works of Berg and Webern, and the Concerto for piano and orchestra of Bruno Maderna as world premiere. The CD album dedicated to George Crumb (Bridge) was nominated for the Grammy Awards, whereas his CD with music from Adams and Rzweski (Stradivarius) has received the critics award for the best italian record in 2006.
Arciuli has published in italian the volume Rifugio Intermedio on contemporary piano music between Italy and the United States and he is working on a new book on american piano music to be published with EDT. Recently, the italian culture channel RaiRadioTre included Arciuli in its serial of ten transmissions presenting contemporary italian interpreters.
Arciuli is professor at the Conservatory in Bari and frequent guest professor at the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati and other american universities.
Emanuele Arciuli's appearance at the 2002 Miami
International Piano Festival marked his Debut
in South Florida. On March 6th, 2003 he collaborate
with Ilya Itin on two piano repertoire and on
March 9th, 2003 he introduced Thelonious Monk’s
“Round Midnight Variations” to Florida
audiences for the first time.
