ALESSANDRO MARANGONI
Born in Italy in 1979, Alessandro Marangoni studied the piano obtaining a diploma with honours and continuing his studies at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole with Maria Tipo. He graduated with honours in Philosophy at the University of Pavia as a student of the Almo Collegio Borromeo.
Alessandro Marangoni burst onto the international concert stage when he played at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, as pianist soloist during a tribute to the great Italian conductor Victor de Sabata, with Daniel Barenboim. Soon after he was signed as an international recording artist with Naxos.
His growing discography has received international critical acclaim for his interpretation and technique that fueled his meteoric rise on the concert stage in Europe, America and China: Alessandro won the prestigious International Classical Music Award (ICMA) and the “F. Abbiati” Prize of the Italian musical critics.
Notable and critically acclaimed collaborations have included appearances in Spain with the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra, with the Granada Philharmonic and in Bratislava with Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, all conducted by the Italian conductor Aldo Ceccato. He has also appeared with the European Philharmonic and Mozarteum Kammerorchester and played as soloist in Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, Sweden, Finland, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, China, USA and Australia.
Alessandro Marangoni recorded for the first time in the story the complete Péchés de vieillesse by Rossini (13 Cds), with 20 first world recordings. As a noted advocate of Italian music, he recorded also Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum (4 cds) and Castelnuovo-Tedesco Piano Concertos with Malmo Symphony Orchestra, as well as Evangélion (first recording) and the complete cello and piano works with Enrico Dindo, Liszt's Via Crucis (Ars Cantica Choir, conducted by Marco Berrini), all on the Naxos label. He won the prestigious Abbiati Prize by the Italian Critics.
As a chamber musician he has collaborated with some of the most important Italian musical personalities and groups, including Mario Ancillotti, Marco Berrini, Giuseppina Bridelli, Maddalena Crippa, Enrico Dindo, Laura Giordano, Alessandro Luciano, Lilly Jorstad, Francesco Manara, Massimo Quarta, Gabriele Mirabassi, Oleksander Semchuck, Paola Pitagora, Quirino Principe, Bruno Taddia, Milena Vukotic, il Quartetto di Fiesole e il Nuovo Quartetto Italiano.
He is the pianist of the Nuove Musiche Ensemble with whom he opened the celebrations of the
bicentenary of Verdi's birth in Busseto in 2013. Acclaimed from the international press, some magazines like Ritmo and Musica dedicated a cover to Alessandro. Gramophone magazine choose his recordings as a landmark for Rossini’s interpretation at the piano.
His energy and interest in new music and new technologies and pioneering spirit have led him to perform in cyberspace in avatar form for international audiences of computer gamers, to form artistic partnerships with artists from other disciplines (recently actress Valentina Cortese) and to launch a new project Chromoconcerto¨ with Pierpaolo Venier. He collaborates with Edizioni Curci, Leduc and Shirmer.
Alessandro Marangoni is the artistic director of Forte Fortissimo TV, a new Music Web Channel and he is international testimonial for the campaign “Music against child labour” of the International Labour Organization (ONU).
PAOLO ORENI
The Süddeutsche Zeitung describes him as a "young promising talented Italian artist, a miracle of skill with phenomenal precision that is still unreached". Paolo Oreni was born in Treviglio in 1979. At the age of 11 he begins to study organ and organ composition with master Giovanni Walter Zaramella at the music institute "Gaetano Donizetti" in Bergamo.
With the help of scholarships from the Ministry of Culture of Luxembourg, the Municipality and the Cooperative Bank of Treviglio, he continues his musical studies at the National Conservatory of Luxembourg from 2000 onwards. There he wins his first prize in 2002 in the international competition "Prix Interregional-Diplòme de Concert", a prestigious Central European Diploma.
He collects valuable influences of different masters of international level, in particular from Jean-Paul Imbert and Lydia Baldecchi Arcuri, with whom he deepens and expands his organ and piano repertoire. Crucial to his training is the encounter with master Jean Guillou, at who’s several masterclasses he participates. By this masterclasses he played the big organs of the Tonhalle Zurich and the Church of St. Eustache in Paris (Stiftung für internationale Meisterkurse für Musik).
He wins various international competitions. In June 2004 he receives a “mention d’honneur” at the international competition "Ville de Paris", where 60 organists from all over the world took part.
He played as a duo with musicians of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Scala Theater in Milan, in chamber music ensembles and symphonic orchestras (Gaetano Donizetti Orchestra of Bergamo, Symphonic Orchestra "laVerdi" Milan, Jeune Orchestre of Paris, Orchestra Haydn Bolzano, Symphonic Orchestra Zurich, Bochum Symphony Orchestra , Wiesbaden Symphony Orchestra, ...) and continues his intensive activity as a concert organist, during which he regularly performs at the most prestigious international music festivals in Italy, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Spain , Portugal, Finland, Norway, Albania, Israel, Poland, Romania, Malta, the Czech Republic and the Canary Islands.
He registered a CD for the french record company Fugatto on the Bossi Organo of Cremolino, for ORGANpromotion at the Rieger Organ of Reutlingen and for the municipality of Salorno in South Tyrol at the Pirchner Organ. Various concerts have been registered and transmitted by european radio broadcasters, including the famous Bayrischer Rundfunk at Munich.
Since 2006, he has regularly been invited to hold masterclasses on improvisation and repertory playing (from Bach to contemporary music) in the Archdiocese of Munich, at the renowned international Akkademie des Domes of Altenberg and in various German cities. In addition, he is often called as a jury member at national and international competitions.
As an organ expert, he works in collaboration with various European organ builders to plan modern pipe organs. These collaborations result in various instruments, e.g. Santa Anastasia Church in Villasanta (Monza), Santa Maria delle Grazie al Naviglio (Milan) and the Church of the Brotherhood of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria in Paternò (Sicily).
He has also designed his personal concert organ, called Wanderer, which is currently the largest existing transportable organ.