Emanuele Torquati sarà in scena il 18 Maggio al Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea di Milano nell’ambito di PianoCity. Il fil rouge del progetto richiama la molteplicità dei richiami tra Europa e America Latina, idealmente collegate da ponti immaginari tra le opere in mostra di Anna Maria Maiolino. Il percorso parte con lo storico brano del compositore argentino Mauricio Kagel, “An Tasten”, sorta di trasfigurazione degli Studi pianistici ottocenteschi che coinvolge prima in modo contemplativo e poi vorticoso tutti iregistri della tastiera. Una goccia appuntita e inflessibile è il fulcro di “Stalagma”, concisa immagine musicale composta da Silvia Borzelli, Italiana ma di stanza ad Amsterdam, in ricordo dell’uccisione della giornalista russa Anna Politovskaja. Dal dramma umano si passerà poi alla sottile drammaticità insita nel “Tango errante” scritto da Maria Cecilia Villanueva, che come tutte le danze è anche un gioco mirabile di slanci e sospensioni. Sospensioni inesistenti nel rutilante “Mambo” di Luca Francesconi, che partendo da un incipit del grande jazzista cieco italo-americano Lennie Tristano lancia a folle velocità le mani del pianista in una sfida virtuosistica. Un ponte gettato verso il conclusivo “Tombeau de Messiaen” di Jonathan Harvey, estatico omaggio al grande compositore francese colorato da un’aura di spiritualità arricchita in modo magistrale dalla cornice elettronica.

Emanuele Torquati is an avid Chamber Music player, and he will start his 2019 with several engagements in Duo and Trio. First, he will join his usual partner, cellist Francesco Dillon, for a Recital’s program featuring Beethoven luminous A Major Sonata and Debussy’s seminal G minor Sonata, alongside some Brahms Lieder and Zemlinsky rare Sonata. The concert will take place for the 49th Season of Amici della Musica di Foggia on 21st February, at Teatro Umberto Giordano.

In March and May, Emanuele will give 4 Trio Concerts with rising talents, cellist Gianluca Montaruli and violinist Federico Piccotti, with a program devoted to Brahms masterwork op. 8 in the revised version, and a rarely performed and demanding piece by Gian Francesco Malipiero, “Sonata a Tre”, written in between 1926 and 1927 and ideally referring to Italian Baroque Music. This fascinating program will be performed on 25th and 26th March for the 20th Season of Accademia dei Cameristi in Bari and Fasano, and on 9th and 10th May in Poland for the Italian Cultural Institutes in Krakow and Warsaw.

Emanuele Torquati will close the year 2018 with 2 important engagements.

First will be on 4th December in Slovenia, at Biennale Koper, presenting a chamber music program with violinist Helena Winkelman and cellist Francesco Dillon, ranging from Schumann to Sciarrino, including two recent works by Stefano Pierini and Helena Winkelman.

Second will be from 17th till 21st December in Argentina, for the prestigious Academy of Distat Terra Festival in Patagonia, where he will give a Piano Masterclass and a Solo Recital on 20th. Program will feature Claude Debussy luminous Suite Bergamasque, as well as important works from contemporary composers, French Colin Roche, Argentinian Master Mariano Etkin and last but not least the virtuosic Mambo written by Luca Francesconi. On 21st December will join cellist Francesco Dillon for the Final Concert of the Festival, with a chamber music program featuring Italian New Music, from Scelsi till Silvia Borzelli, and Debussy seminal Sonata in g minor.

November will be a very busy month for Emanuele, starting on 10th November at Auditorium Stelio Molo of Swiss RSI with the world premiere of Mario Pagliarani’s “Opera della Notte” with flutist Manuel Zurria and cellist Francesco Dillon. On 16th November the Duo will be on stage in Genova for “No Comfort Zone” Festival with a program ranging from Debussy to Kate Moore, including Italian premieres of Marco Momi “Unstill” and Ryan Carter “Break”, recently performed in Strasbourg, Paris and New York. More, On 24th and 25th November, in Diessenhofen and at Gare du Nord in Basel, Emanuele will join violinist Helena Winkelman and cellist Francesco Dillon for “Lo spazio introverso”, a project with couple Trios from the repertoire, Liszt – Schumann and Schubert, with New Music, Filidei – Pierini and a world premiere written for the occasion by Helena Winkelman.

Duo Dillon-Torquati will start his Fall Tour on 30th September at Salle de la Bourse in Strasbourg, for the prestigious MUSICA Festival, with a Recital including Italian New Music, a.o. a World Premiere written for them by Marco Momi, and Solo pieces by Luca Francesconi, composer in residence. On 1st October they will be on stage in Paris at Hotel de Galliffet for the Italian Cultural Insitute, adding to the program Debussy’s masterpiece Sonate in sol mineur.  

On 3rd October the Duo will present the program in New York City, at the Italian Academy of Columbia University, including a World Premiere written for them by Ryan Carter, and masterworks by Sciarrino and Scelsi.

On 4th October, Emanuele Torquati has been invited to give a Masterclass at New York University. The annual Piano Artist Master Class Series offers a window into the creative process, as world-renowned performing artists offer guidance and inspiration to the pianists of NYU Steinhardt.

Emanuele’s Concert Season will start on 21st August in Venice with a Solo Recital at Festival LidoMusicAgosto, in the unique setting of Chiostro di San Nicolò. The project “Invitation au Voyage” is devoted to Claude Debussy and includes his fascinating Suite Bergamasque, and a new work written by Colin Roche for the occasion, L’etale (ou la Mer silencieuse), which is based on some fragments taken from his Symphonic Sketches, La Mer. Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante defunte and Gershwin’s virtuosic and extroverted Rhapsody in Blue will complete the journey, together with two Albumleaves by Silvio Omizzolo.

Following concerts are scheduled in Switzerland for the 15th Edition of La Via Lattea Festival on 23rd and 24th August and will be devoted to chamber music, with works by Franz Schubert and George Crumb played with outstanding musicians such as violinist and composer Helena Winkelman, percussionist Simone Beneventi and cellist Francesco Dillon.

The ninth edition of Music@VillaRomana – the concert series curated by Emanuele Torquati and Francesco Dillon – goes by the title Timeless Polyphonies. It will follow the common theme of timeless and spaceless mutating polyphonies that are rich in assonances and references to worlds only seemingly distant from each other, from both the stylistic and temporal points of view.
The program of Timeless Polyphonies is distinguished by the superb level of accomplishment of the invited artists and the variety of events on offer. It is a quest for non-sectorial musical directions that bring together only apparently distant languages (classical and contemporary music, electronics, improvisation, figurative art and oral narration) through themes that go beyond categories and aim at speaking to (and helping to create) a curious and dynamic audience.

The absolute protagonist of the first event, Timeless Polyphonies (15 – 16 June), will be the music of the Austrian composer Thomas Larcher, a distinguished pianist who has lately been in the limelight on the European music scene with commissions for the Wiener Philarmoniker and Bregenzer Festspiele. For the first time in Italy, Larcher will be present at Music@VillaRomana both as a composer and as a pianist and, at his express request, his works will be in dialogue with the seminal last works of Franz Liszt. The references and relationships between these two languages, chronologically distant but similar in imagination, will be echoed in the following Night Concert by the eclectic composer Zeno Baldi, a rising star in the latest generation of Italian composers, appearing here as an electronic musician. The play of voices, and hence of polyphonies, will continue with an intimate moment dedicated to chamber music with the Italian premiere of works by Jay Schwartz – current fellow at Villa Massimo in Rome – and Helena Winkelman – a Swiss composer and talented violinist, winner of the Schweizer Musikpreis 2017 – as well as the Italian premiere of the Primo Studio piano solo by the Sicilian composer Emanuele Casale.
Other timeless dialogues- between ancient and modern- will feature in the Suoni Pizzicati project, involving Magnus Andersson, an electric guitarist, and Stefano Maiorana, a theorbist, who will alternately play Baroque pieces and pieces by contemporary composers joining in a duet in the new work commissioned by Music@VillaRomana from the Argentine composer José Manuel Serrano.

Emanuele Torquati will be on stage for several Concerts in May, playing Solo and Chamber Music!

Starting on 7th May at Casa della Musica in Parma, with cellist Francesco Dillon, for “Verso Traiettorie” Festival, a program featuring Faurè Second Sonata and Debussy’s masterwork, “Melencolia 1″ by Salvatore Sciarrino, plus a new solo Piano Piece “La Notte Invisibile” written for him by Francesco Pavan.

On 10th May at Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile in Torino, Emanuele will perform Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” in the Version for piano and Wind Quintet and works by D. Milhaud and Jean Francaix for De Sono Associazione per la Musica.

On 20th May will be the turn of Fondazione Prada in Milan, for “Imaginary Bridges between Europe and America”, a Solo project devoted to his beloved Ferruccio Busoni and Charles Tomlinson Griffes, whom Emanuele devoted his last Album “The Vale of Dreams”.

Last but not least, he will take part to the consistent Homage to Philip Glass at the Austrian Festival “Musik Im Riesen” on 25th May, playing with the composer himself his work “Two Movements for 4 Pianos” in the wonderful setting of Swarovski Kristallwelten.

Arrangements of the First Violin Sonata and groups of songs and Hungarian dances, made by Brahms’s contemporaries for an idiom close to the composer’s heart, in new recordings by an experienced partnership.

Duo Dillon-Torquati conclude their fourth album for Brilliant Classics in a lighter vein, with nine of the ever-popular Hungarian Dances, arranged to stylish effect by the Italian virtuoso Alfredo Piatti who did so much to advance the cause of the cello as a solo instrument in the 19th century. The Italian duo’s pair of Schumann albums and Liszt Complete Works, were warmly welcomed in the critical press: reviewing the second volume, Il corriere musicale noted the ‘persuasive, vibrant tone of Francesco Dillon and refined pianism from Emanuele Torquati.’ 

Johannes Brahms was a keen transcriber, he wrote numerous arrangements of his own works and those of others. Moreover he was happy when others transcribed his works for other instruments, that is when it was done by musicians he trusted. He considered it a form of theft for love, a manifestation for respect for tradition and a sign of friendship. 
The transcriptions on this new recording were fully approved by Brahms, and they even found their place in the Brahms Thematic Catalogue made up by his publisher Simrock. The transcribers are Alfredo Piatti (Hungarian Dances), Paul Klengel (violin sonata No. 1) and Norbert Salter (songs). It is fascinating how essentially Brahmsian these transcriptions for cello and piano sound, the deep and slightly melancholy sonority of the cello fits Brahms music extremely well. 

DOWNLOAD AND STREAMS

Duo Dillon-Torquati will be on Tour in February, starting with 2 concerts in Italy on 2nd and 3rd, then in Germany (on 9th in Stuttgart) and Denmark (on 13th in Copenaghen). The program will feature a rare transcription of Brahms most lyrical Sonata op. 78 in D Major, which will be part of the new All-Brahms CD of the Duo. Beside two important works of French repertoire, Debussy Sonata and Fauré seminal Second Sonata. Venues will be Torri dell’Acqua in Budrio (Bologna), Amici della Musica di Modena, and Italian Cultural Institutes in Stuttgart and Copenaghen.