Choir conductors and choir conducting students from public or private academies can participate in the course.

Amor vincit omnia

The victory of love over everything, especially over death, is a theme that art and poetry have passed down for millennia through extraordinary works. From the “Song of Solomon” where it is written, “love is strong as death” [Song of Solomon 8:6-7], to Virgil’s “omnia vincit amor” transformed into the title of Caravaggio’s masterpiece “amor vincit omnia,” the spiritual meaning and emotional energy of these works can also be recognized in the compositions that will be studied during the course. Many pieces will feature text from the extraordinary “Song of Solomon,” and the grand cycles of Palestrina and Daniel-Lusur will be studied, as well as motets by Dunstable, Gabrieli, and Victoria. Magnificent and immortal choral works dedicated to the power of love include the compositions of Monteverdi, Bach, and Mahler, while modern and contemporary pieces are significant for the neo-madrigal repertoire. This program is complemented by a tribute to Dufay on the 450th anniversary of his death and collaboration with the orchestral conducting course led by Maestro Daniele Gatti for the realization of Donizetti’s opera “Don Pasquale.”

The Course will be organized as follows:

• morning: practical lessons, theory, and exercises with the choir (possible practical lesson with the choir of the opera “Don Pasquale”);
• afternoon: practical lessons with the choir.

At the end of the afternoon lessons, all students (active and auditors) will attend rehearsals of the following works:

Guillaume Dufay Missa l’Homme armé
György Ligeti Lux aeterna and other pieces for a cappella choir 
Goffredo Petrassi Nonsense
Gaetano Donizetti ”Don Pasquale” (directing rehearsal and orchestral rehearsal)

The admission exam will take place through the submission of a video audition. The video, lasting 3-6 minutes, should present a performance or a concert of a piece for a cappella choir.

The lessons will cover the following repertoire:

• John Dunstable Descendi in hortum meum
• Guillaume Dufay Missa l’Homme armé
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Canticum canticorum [selection]
• Giovanni Gabrieli Qui est ista qui venit (double choir a 10 voci)
• Tomás Luis de Victoria Nigra sum sed formosa, Trahe me post te
• Claudio Monteverdi Lamento d’Arianna
• Johann Sebastian Bach Komm, Jesu, komm (mottetto a doppio coro)
• Gustav Mahler (arr. Clytus Gottwald) Ich bin der Welt (choir a 16 voci)
• Ildebrando Pizzetti Due composizioni corali
• Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur Le Cantique des cantiques (choir a 12 voci)
  
• Randall Stroope Amor de mi alma
• Morten Lauridsen Soneto de la noche
• Eric Whitacre With a Lily in Your Hand