Il ponte di Leonardo – Constantinople & Marco Beasley

Marco Beasley, a specialist in Renaissance music, joins forces with Constantinople to celebrate, in music, a bridge that Leonardo da Vinci designed in 1502. The longest and boldest bridge of the time, it was to span the Bosporus and thus link Europe and Asia. But it was never built; the plans, however, were preserved in the artist’s archives. Five centuries later, Tabassian re-imagines this bridge with the help of 16th- and 17th-century works from the manuscript archives of the national libraries of Istanbul and Florence.

Artists
Marco Beasley, tenor

Marco Beasley was born in Portici, near Naples, in 1957. During his musical studies at the University of Bologna, he deepened his knowledge of the two stylistic pivots of the late Renaissance – recitar cantando and sacred and secular polyphony. He thus began an active concert career which quickly took him to some of the most prestigious venues, from the Mozarteum in Salzburg to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome to Lincoln Center in New York.

As a singer, actor and writer, the personality of Marco Beasley embraces the carefree soul of Naples, the joie de vivre of making music, and the desire to confront the world of poetry and literature.

“Many different qualities reside within him: the clear and unmistakable purity of timbre in his voice; a very particular vocal technique which is the result of extensive personal study and historical research; the love of words, both sophisticated and dialectical; a natural predisposition for communication and expressiveness. All result in a variety of vocal colors and registers, a captivating musical approach in which joy and burlesque irreverence give way to a more plaintive and solitary style, at once intimate and moving. From Gregorian chant to polyphony, from the sixteenth-century frottola to motets, from recitar cantando to the great Neapolitan songs, up to modern re-inventions of historical genres: Marco’s exceptional qualities both vocal and expressive, united with his personal sensibility and fantasy, result in interpretations which are always new and allow him to cover an enormously vast range of musical styles and periods” (from an interview with M° Guido Morini).

Kiya Tabassian, setar, voice, direction

Setar virtuoso and acclaimed composer, Kiya Tabassian has carved out a privileged place on the international music scene with his ensemble Constantinople and also as a soloist. Past master in cross-cultural musical encounters, he travels across the five continents for presenting his creations and his music on stages from all over the world.

In 2001, he co-founded Constantinople with the idea of developing an ensemble of musical creations at the crossroads of multiple encounters; drawing from the heritage of the Middle-Ages and the Renaissance, from Europe to the Mediterranean and to the Middle-East. Since then, he has assumed artistic direction and has developed more than fifty programs with this ensemble.

Tanya Laperrière, baroque violin and viola d’amore
Fabio Accurso, lute
Stefano Rocco, archlute and baroque guitar
Didem Basar, kanun
Patrick Graham, percussions

Saturday, March 19, 2022 at 8:00pm
To purchase your tickets visit: www.mbam.qc.ca/en/bourgie-hall/

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