CORO BACH and SANDRO RODEGHIERO
CORO BACH DI MILANO
Coro Bach di Milano was founded in May 1995 by its current director Sandro Rodeghiero and by a group of amateur choral singers who particularly love the music of the great German composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Their aim was to interpret and perform the repertoire of Bach’s music from an Italian point of view, with particular attention to the sacred cantatas, and to Bach’s sacred works in general, and to make the music known among as wide an audience as possible. Over the years, however, the choir’s repertoire widened beyond the music of Bach to include music of all periods: Palestrina, Pachelbel, Brahms, Vivaldi, Galuppi, Charpentier, Telemann, Haydn, Mozart, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Verdi, Fauré, Perosi, Schönberg, Bettinelli, Lauridsen, Pärt, Whitacre.
Since its foundation, the choir has performed in more than one hundred concerts, and has sung in the most beautiful churches and concert halls of Milan and other cities: Milan cathedral, the churches of Santa Maria del Carmine, Sant’Angelo, Sant’Eustorgio, San Sebastiano, Corpus Domini, San Nazaro in Brolo, San Fedele, San Lorenzo Maggiore, San Carlo al Corso, San Bartolomeo, Santa Maria della Grazia al Naviglio, the Abbey church of Pontida (Bergamo), the Abbey church of Staffarda (Cuneo), San Stefano in Reggio (Reggio Emilia), San Pietro Martire (Seveso), Santa Maria al Carrobiolo (Monza), San Domenico (Casale Monferrato), Cathedral of Tortona, Santuario di Rhò, Santuario di Caravaggio, Cathedral of Rovereto, Sala Verdi of the Milan Conservatory, the Auditorium of Milan, Arcimboldi theatre, Palazzo Isimbardi, Castello Sforzesco, Palazzo Ducale in Genova.
The conductors who have directed the choir include Daniele Agiman, Marco Ambrosini, Giampaolo Bisanti, Lu Jiao, Lonnie Klein, Arturo Sacchetti, Emilio Suvini, Daniele Tirilli, Dario Toffolon, Kirill Vishnyakov, Yulia Khutoretskaya, Roberto Zarpellon; the choir has also worked with many well-known organists including Gianluca Capuano, Francesco Catena, Antonio Frigè, Sofia Park, Gianluca Petagna, Luca Ratti. The choir works on a regular basis with charitable organisations such as Fondazione Ivo de Carneri, Mani Tese, Casa della Carità, Lions Club. In May 2014 it participated in a performance of music, theatre and dance called “Orfeo canta!” by the director Franco Brambilla in the Museo del Novecento in Milan.
The choir has worked with a number of instrumental groups including the Orchestra Cantelli, Orchestra Coccia di Novara, I Musici di Parma, Orchestra Sinfonica di Lecco, Orchestra Classica di Alessandria, University of New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Italiana, Fantazyas Ensemble, Collegium Pro Musica, Milano Brass Ensemble, Orchestra Esagramma and with important musicians such as Denia Mazzola Gavazzeni and the poetess Alda Merini.
Jointly with the Extra Moenia cultural association it has organised a number of important events including two editions of “Le Cattedrali della Musica”: in the year 2000 for the 250th anniversary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach and in 2006 for the celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The events, supported by the municipality of Milan, saw the participation of choirs and musicians from all over Europe and received a prize from the international association “European Mozart Ways” as the best project of musical cooperation of its kind.
Coro Bach di Milano has been invited as guest to many musical events: Rassegna di Musica Sacra dell’Abbazia di Pontida (1998), Ethos Musica d’Estate in Codogno (2000), Giubileo in Seveso (2000), Autunno Musicale Gardonese in Gardone Valtrompia (2002), Tonalestate in Ponte di Legno (2003 and 2008), Perosiana in Tortona (2005 and 2006), Primavera di San Lorenzo in Milan (2004), Rassegna Mozartiana dell’Orchestra Sinfonia di Lecco (2006), Itinerari Polifonici in Bergamo (2007), Cantando in CoRho in Rhò (2008), Lode in Musica in Caravaggio (2010), Chorus City in Milan (2012), Venerdì del Borgo in Milan (2013). In 2011 it was invited to participate in the final concert at the Teatro Arcimboldi in Milan of the celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of relations with China, with a repertoire of traditional Chinese songs sung in the original Chinese. In 2013 it organised a joint concert with the Tyresö Kammarkör choir from Stockholm in the basilica of San Lorenzo in Milan with a programme of Bach motets; the proceeds from the concert were devolved to the charitable foundation Ivo de Carneri.
In May 2014 the choir participated in the travelling show “Orfeo, canta!”, a show based on the Greek mythological story of Orpheus and Euridice, which was performed in the exhibition rooms of the Museo del Novecento in Milan, produced and directed by Franco Brambilla. In November 2014 it performed in the cathedral of Casale Monferrato in the Festival dei Luoghi Immaginari singing Johannes Brahms’ work “Ein Deutsches Requiem”, conducted by Yulia Khutoretskaya.
It has organized partnerships and joint concerts with other choirs in Italy and abroad, including Ghirlanda Musicale di Bergamo, Schola Cantorum of the Santuario di Rhò, Coro CPSM in Milan, Süddeutscher Kammerchor of Alzenau (Germany), Kammerchor Mainz (Germany), Arrach’Choeur of Strasbourg (France), Bratislava City Choir (Slovakia), Hesston College Chorale (USA), University of New Mexico Choir (USA).
Coro Bach di Milano has always considered it particularly important to support charitable organisations through music and in this spirit it has worked over many years with institutions such as Mani Tese, Esagramma, Casa della Carità, Fondazione Corti, Fondazione Ivo De Carneri, Alessio Tavecchio, Caffè dell’Arte and Emergency, helping them not only in their fund-raising events but also in making their charitable work better known among the public.
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SANDRO RODEGHIERO, director
Sandro Rodeghiero completed his academic and musical studies in Milano and studied choral conducting with Maestro Zingaro and Maestro Galimberti; he has also participated in courses led by Maestro M. Dones.
From 1978 until 1986 he taught classical guitar at the Corsi Popolari Serali di Musica (CPSM) in the Milan Conservatory “Giuseppe Verdi”. From 1998 he has conducted the CPSM Choir with which he has participated in a number of concerts for choir and orchestra: Handel’s “Messiah”, Mozart’s “Requiem”, Vivaldi’s “Gloria”, Galuppi’s “Magnificat”, the Schicksalslied of Brahms, “Jona” by Carissimi and cantatas of Buxtehude.
In 1992 he founded the Coro Arcadelt, which concentrated mainly on unaccompanied polyphonic music of the Renaissance period including, amongst others, Palestrina, Arcadelt and Monteverdi.
As composer and teacher Sandro Rodeghiero has led a number of seminars open to the public in which he gave a critical commentary of choral works by Brahms, as well as Mozart’s “Requiem” and some Bach cantatas.
In 1995 he founded the Coro Bach di Milano, which he has conducted since its inception. With this choir he has concentrated on sacred music for choir and orchestra by Bach and other European baroque composers as well as unaccompanied choral works ranging from the Renaissance period up to modern times. He has organised partnerships with the Süddeutscher Kammerchor of Alzenau, the Kammerchor Mainz, Arrach’Choeur of Strasbourg, Hesston College Chorale (USA) and the University of New Mexico Choir (USA).
In the years since 2000 he has taken part in various editions of the concert series “Le Cattedrali della Musica”, organised together with Extra Moenia, conducting Bach’s cantatas BWV 66, 78, 80, 106, 140, 190, 196 as well as Bach’s “Magnificat”, Fauré’s “Requiem”, Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and “Magnificat”, Telemann’s “Trauerkantate” and Haydn’s “Stabat Mater” in various cities in Italy.
Together with Maestro Arturo Sacchetti he participated in the Festival Perosiano in 2005 and in 2006 conducting the Coro Bach di Milano in the most famous oratorios of Lorenzo Perosi.
He has written and directed numerous theatrical pieces for children.