On 29 August, at the Balder Hall in Helsinki, the choir of students from the Giuseppe Martucci Conservatory in Salerno, conducted by Maestro Alessandro Tino, presented the programme “NAPLES 2500 – A Polyphonic Adventure: from Domenico Scarlatti to Pino Daniele”, a musical journey through the great Neapolitan polyphonic tradition to contemporary Neapolitan songwriting.
Promoted by the Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute in Finland and sponsored by the Municipality of Naples, the concert, organized also with Erasmus+ funds, is part of the official programme of the “Naples 2500” celebrations.
From sacred music to Renaissance lauds and villanelles, through the sublime Baroque compositions of Domenico Scarlatti, to famous pieces by Modugno, Dalla and Pino Daniele reworked in madrigal style, the programme provided the Helsinki audience with a first-ever overview of the wonderful polyphonic tradition of Naples, a city that has always been a crossroads of different cultures and musical languages, with an extraordinary ability for blending genres.
The concert closed with a tribute to Finland with Butterfly by the vocal group Rajaton, sealing the ideal encounter between the Mediterranean and the Baltic.
The debut in Helsinki of the Pop Cappella Choir of the Salerno Conservatory marks a significant milestone in the ensemble’s international career – in the words of Ambassador Todaro Marescotti, “the first of its kind among Italian conservatories and a flagship of the national Higher Education System for Art and Music” – and a new opportunity to showcase the myriad nuances of Neapolitan musical heritage, including contemporary music, to the world, just a few days after the concert paying tribute to Pino Daniele, 10 years after the death of the unforgettable Neapolitan musician and inimitable singer of all the colours of Naples.
credits: Alessandro Rampazzo
