Archi di Santa Cecilia

After the great success, in 2013, of the debut in the chamber season of Santa Cecilia, the String Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia launched a permanent collaboration under the baton of Luigi Piovano.

In 2014 the ensemble made its first concert appearances throughout in Italy, which were unfailingly extremely successful, and the French label Eloquentia issued the first CD of the group under Piovano’s baton with the same program of the debut concert: Sonata “Arpeggione” transcribed for cello and string orchestra by Piovano (here performing as a soloist too) and Quartet “Death and the Maiden” transcribed for string orchestra by Mahler. The CD has been highly praised by international press: Ralph Moore, writing on “MusicWeb International” about the performance of Schubert-Mahler “Death and the Maiden” described it as «mesmerising, intense, thrilling and liberated in a way too few recordings are these days. The Presto finale is simply marvellous», meanwhile David Vernier wrote on “Classics Today”: «the concluding fourth-movement Presto is an impressive display of ensemble virtuosity».

Since then, the Archi and Piovano have performed almost annually during the Santa Cecilia season – in addition to giving concerts at prestigious Italian venues such as Musica Insieme in Bologna, the Associazione Scarlatti in Naples, the Ravello Festival, and the Teatro Grande in Brescia, as well as at the Philharmonie in Essen, Germany – and have released six CDs and a DVD dedicated to Bach’s keyboard Concertos with Dutch pianist Gile Bae.