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Cappella Mediterranea

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Cappella Mediterranea is a Baroque ensemble, founded in 2005 by the Argentine conductor Leonardo García Alarcón, born in 1976 in La Plata. García Alarcón studied harpsichord and organ, was for years an assistant to Gabriel Garrido and teaches at the conservatoire in Geneva. The ensemble aims at the aesthetic ideals of composers from Southern Europe in the seventeenth century and also wants to bring music from the folk traditions around the Mediterranean to a wide audience. It specialises in the main genres of that time: the madrigal, the polyphonic motet and opera. It often works with the Chœur de Chambre de Namur, of which García Alarcón has been artistic director since 2010.

Music and breakthrough

The ensemble brings back forgotten music, such as Il Diluvio Universale and Nabucco by the seventeenth-century Sicilian Michelangelo Falvetti, and makes new performances of well-known works such as the Vespers and L'Orfeo by Monteverdi. The international breakthrough came in 2013 with the opera Elena by Francesco Cavalli at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. After that it played in major opera houses and at festivals. Albums on the list include Virtuosissima compositrice in 2009, Heroines of the Venetian Baroque in 2015, L'Orfeo in 2021 and La finta pazza in 2022.

Influence

In this way Cappella Mediterranea contributes to the rediscovery of Baroque music, a world in which singing, basso continuo and dramatic expression supply the blueprint for much later music.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in this ensemble's performance. Notice how the singers sing the text almost as speech and how the accompaniment supports the drama.

Discography

Studio albums

Categories: Artists