Musica Fiorita - Ensemble

The harpsichordist and leader of the Ensemble MUSICA FIORITA is a native of Sicily, presently residing in Basel. She studied early music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, specializing in historical keyboard instruments. Shortly after, she went to Amsterdam for further training with Gustav Leonhardt. Because of her work with Jesper B. Christensen, she became very interested in the historical basso continuo practice, based on 17th and 18th century sources. At present, Daniela Dolci gives performances and makes recordings for radio programs in numerous countries around the world, such as the Baltic States, Poland, Japan, Argentina and Bolivia. Since 2005, she teaches chamber music and basso continuo at the Università degli Studi della Basilicata-Potenza. She participated in CD recordings with the ensembles Dulciainas, Concerto di Viole and with the cellist Ivan Monighetti. With her own Ensemble MUSICA FIORITA, she has recorded “Music and Poetry of the Thirty Years War,” as well as works by Barbara Strozzi, Elisabeth Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, Johann Melchior Gletle and Camilla de Rossi. The press reviewed all of these very highly. In 2005, the latest recordings of the ensemble, with works by Tarquinio Merula and Dario Castello, are scheduled to come out on CD.

Lisandro Abadie

Denis Lakey

Graciela Odone

Susanne Rydén

The Swedish soprano received her musical education at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. Today, she is in great demand, as a soloist, and a frequent guest at various European music festivals. She gives concerts in Europe, South Africa, Australia, Japan and USA. As well as participating in numerous television, radio and video productions, she has recorded many CDs. The "Barbara Strozzi" recording (on the Harmonia Mundi label), with Susanne Rydén and MUSICA FIORITA, received very positive reviews and was selected "the CD of the month" in September 2000 by the BBC Music Magazine. She performs regularly with internationally renowned ensembles and conductors, such as Academy of Ancient Music with Christopher Hogwood, Bach Collegium Japan, The Bach Ensemble with Joshua Rifkin, Stockholm Baroque Orchester, Roy Goodman and Ensemble Weser-Renaissance Bremen with Manfred Cordes. She works, regularly, with the Ensemble MUSICA FIORITA. Susanne Rydén taught at the Royal Music Academy in Stockholm from 1996 until 2002.

Makoto Sakurada

Péter Barczi

Péter Barczi was born in Hungary, in 1973. After completing his studies of the modern violin with a final exam, he studied baroque violin in Budapest, Dresden, Trossingen and Basel, his teachers being Piroska Vitárius, Simon Standage, John Holloway, Anton Steck and Chiara Banchini. Since 1998, he is a member and the principal violin of the baroque orchestra Capriccio Basel. In addition, he has been working with various other baroque orchestras, in Switzerland, as well as Germany, such as Ensemble 415 and La Cetra and with smaller ensembles like Scapino and MUSICA FIORITA.

Rafael Bonavita

Rafael Bonavita was introduced to guitar at the age of ten, in his home country of Uruguay. Further studies of the instrument, as well as concerts, brought him to Argentina and Brazil. In 1992, he won the first prize from A.E. Music and in the same year, Alvaro Pierri Rafael Bonavita was invited to the University of Quebec in Montreal (Canada), which led to an expansion of his musical and instrumental knowledge. Thereafter, he decided to concentrate himself on early music and went to study at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Switzerland). He graduated with a Soloist Diploma in historical plucked instruments (Renaissance and Baroque Lute, Theorbo, Vihuela, Baroque Guitar) from the class of Hopkinson Smith. In the last years, Rafael Bonavita has been engaged, often, as a guitarist, by the Basel Sinfonietta in contemporary music projects. He has also been invited by the Basel Theater for opera productions. In addition, he gives concerts as a soloist in Europe, South America and Japan. At the same time, he records CD's, radio and TV productions. He plays in many ensembles with such renowned conductors and leaders as René Jacobs, Marc Minkowski, Yoshimichi Hamada, Jordi Savall and Daniela Dolci. His latest appearances have been in Paris, Innsbruck, Berlin, Tokyo, Wiener Festwochen and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. http://www.rafaelbonavita.com

Éva Borhi

Éva Borhi was born and raised in Szombathely, Hungary. She successfully completed her studies of the modern violin, in Szeged, with a Concert Artist Diploma. Since then, she has dedicated herself to the performance on the baroque violin. She studied with Simon Standage, John Holloway, Anton Steck and Chiara Banchini. For many years, she has been playing with ensembles like MUSICA FIORITA, La Cetra, Ensemble 415 and Capriccio Basel.

Marie Bournisien

Marie Bournisien grew up in Montbéliard, France. After studying modern Harp in various conservatories in France (with Frédérique Cambreling), she graduated in 1997 with the "Prix de la ville de Paris." Since 1997, she has dedicated herself to the historical Harp, which she studied with Marion Fourquier at the Center of Medieval Music of Paris and afterwards with Heidrun Rosenzweig at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. She has worked in Basel with Andrea Marcon, Jesper Christensen (basso continuo) and many others. In 2002, she began her postgraduate studies at the Conservatory of Den Haag with Christina Pluhar. In July 2003, together with her ensemble Savadi (with singers Ulrike Hofbauer and Kristine Jaunalksne) she won the first prize in the Early Music Network International Young Artists Competition in York (England). Concerts and recordings with well-known ensembles, such as Orlando di Lasso Ensemble with Detlef Bratschke, Académie baroque européenne d'Ambronay with Gabriel Garrido, among many others, have led the young harpist to travel throughout Europe.

Michael Form

Michael Form was born in Mainz, in 1967. He completed his studies at the Conservatory of Music, Cologne with a final recital, in 1992. He continued his studies at the Rotterdam Conservatory and, subsequently, at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where he specialized in music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Parallel with his interest for early music, Michael Form developed his conducting skills with the Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache. Along with numerous scholarships, such as Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung of SWR (Baden-Baden), Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris), and the Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdienstes (DAAD), Michael Form received awards and prizes from well known, international competitions: ARD (Munich), ICARE 88 (Paris), Concours Musica Antiqua (Bruge). He appears regularly at various renowned European music festivals, some of which are Festival Oude Muziek (Utrecht), Festival van Vlaanderen, Lucerne Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Handel-Festspiele (Halle), Villa Musica (Mainz), Rheingau Musik Festival, and Musica e Poesia a San Maurizio (Milan). He performs often, with well-known artists and ensembles, including the Taverner Players (Andrew Parott), Ensemble Gilles Binchois (Dominique Vellard), Ensemble MUSICA FIORITA (Daniela Dolci), and Café Zimmermann. Michael Form gives concerts, as a soloist, with the Radiophilharmonie des NDR (Hannover) and the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève (Michael Hofstetter). He has been recorded by almost all of the German radio stations. Michael Form devotes himself to working with his own Ensemble Les Flamboyants, which, since its 1997 debut, has received invitations to many important festivals of early music in Europe and New Zealand. The exceptional diversity of the repertoire of Les Flamboyants is supported by the three recordings that the ensemble has worked on with Raumklang Records. From 1988 until 1997, Michael Form held a teaching position at the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. Starting from 2003, he has been teaching at the Hochschule der Kuenste (Bern) and in 2004, he started teaching at the Staatliche Hochschule fuer Musik (Freiburg/Br.). Additionally, he is a guest lecturer at the Conservatorio Superior de Mùsica, Santa Cruz (Spain) and gives master classes at the Music Conservatory, Sofia (Bulgaria), the Meistersinger Konservatorium (Nurenberg), the National Conservatory of Music and Dance (Lyon, France). In 2002, Michael Form started his second career, as a conductor. Since then, he conducts regularly the orchestra of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, the Orchestre Baroque du Léman, as well as the Baroque Orchestra of FIMA (Festival of the Italian Foundation for Early Music in Urbino, Italy). During the 2005/2006 season, Michael Form will accept invitations to conduct in Switzerland, Heidelberg (Germany) and Latin America.

Felix Knecht

Felix Knecht was born in Chur, Switzerland, in 1972. He studied modern cello in Basel and Biel with Conradin Brodtbek and the baroque Cello with Hidemi Suzuki in Brussels and, later with Christoph Coin at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. He attended courses by Anner Bylsma, Gerhart Darmstadt and Andrea Marcon. Concerts and tours have taken Felix Knecht to France, Italy, Germany, Eastern Europe, South America, and USA. He has performed with La Cetra (Basel), Ensemble Turicum, Capriccio Basel, Ensemble Gilles Binchois, Café Zimmermann (Paris), Ensemble Les Cornets Noir, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Baroque de Nice, Baroque Orchestra Corund and others. He has worked with well-known conductors like Andrew Parott, Gottfried von der Goltz, Dominique Vellard, Michel Corboz, Pablo Valetti, and Andrea Marcon. At the present time, Felix Knecht works as a freelance cellist in Basel and Lausanne.

Hiro Kurosaki

baroque violin

Juan Sebastian Lima

Born in Buenos Aires - Argentina in 1973, Azul Juan Sebastian Lima began his musical studies on the classical guitar at the Juan Pedro Esnaola National School of Music and graduated with a diploma at the age of 17. He continued his studies at the National Conservatory of Buenos Aires and in 1989; he won the first prize in the "Young Guitarists Competition" of the Jrimian Foundation. With the support of a scholarship, Azul was able to attend workshops of interpretation of early music for guitarists and lutenists, organized and taught in 1993 and 1994 by Hopkinson Smith in Argentina. During this time, Mr. Smith invited Azul to take the entrance exam for the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, where he was a member of the faculty. In 1999, Azul completed his studies in Basel with a diploma. While studying in Europe, he won the first prize in "The 7th International Young Artists Competition" in York, England (1997). Parallel with his studies, Azul acquired a solid professional experience. He participated in numerous concerts in the most famous theaters of Argentina: Teatro Cervantes, Teatro San Martin, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Teatro Colon. In the course of his life in Basel, he participated in various projects in Switzerland, Europe, USA, Canada and South America with very important musicians and early music ensembles, like: Ensemble 415 - Chiara Banchini, Ensemble Orlando - Laurent Gendre, L’Accademia - F. Laserre, Repères Baroques - Yvon Repérant, Accademia Bizantina - Ottavio Dantone, Tafelmusik - Herve Niquet, Hilliard Ensemble - Paul Hillier Concerto Vocale - René Jacobs, Ensemble Zefiro - Alfredo Bernardini, Huelgas Ensemble - Paul van Nevel, G. Carminiola, and others. In June 2004, Azul obtained his Performing Soloist Diploma from the Conservatory of Geneva, Switzerland.

Paolo Pandolfo

Paolo Pandolfo is presently one of the most important musicians on the European early music scene. He became interested in Renaissance and Baroque music in 1979 when he founded La Stravaganza together with Rinaldo Alessandrini and Enrico Gatti. After studying at the Rome Conservatory, in 1981 he moved to Switzerland to research the world of the viola da gamba. Soon afterwards, in Basel he began a series of musical collaborations with Jordi Savall that led him to form part of Hespèrion XX, participating in a number of remarkable recordings. In 1989, he was named professor of viola da gamba at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, a position held in high esteem worldwide and previously held by August Wenzinger and Jordi Savall. Since then his teaching activity has been centred in Switzerland, where he directs, since 1992, the Ensemble di viole Labyrinto, a group that specialises in interpreting the vast and fascinating body of works for consort of viols. Pandolfo’s concert tours have taken him around the world and he frequently performs live, both unaccompanied and with his group Labyrinto. Since Pandolfo signed exclusively to Glossa in 1998, the year in which the label released his most popular CD, A Solo, he has the freedom to take all the time he needs to fully explore each new recording project, meaning that each CD is something of a musical revelation.

Rebeka Rusó

After studying violoncello in Bratislava (Slovakia), Rebeka Rusó concentrated on studies of the Viola da Gamba with Wieland Kuijken at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels (1993-1996 soloist diploma with honors). She went on to complete post-graduate studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (final recital in 2002) with Paolo Pandolfo and Christophe Coin (baroque cello), at the same time taking master classes with Jordi Savall. Rebeka Rusó is the prizewinner of the first International Bach-Abel Viola da Gamba Competition in Koethen, in 1997. As a member of renowned baroque ensembles like La Petite Bande, Hespérion XXI, Le Parlament de Musique and MUSICA FIORITA she gives concerts in Europe, America and Japan. Since October 2001, she has been a teacher at the Musikhochschule Leipzig and has been invited to give master classes, internationally.

Bork-Frithjof Smith

Born in 1974, in Hannover, Germany, Bork-Frithjof Smith began playing cornetto at the age of twelve, along with violoncello and recorder lessons. In 1994, he started his studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, in the cornetto class of Bruce Dickey. He received his soloist’s diploma in 1999. He works regularly with the ensembles Concerto Palatino, Akkademia, La Fenice, MUSICA FIORITA and conductors such as Paul van Nevel, René Jacobs and Konrad Junghänel. He participates in such well-known festivals in Saintes, Ambronay, Antwerpen, Gotham Early Music (NY), Oslo and Buenos Aires.

Miki Takahashi

Margit Uebellacker

Margit Übellacker was born in Amstetten, Lower Austria, in 1975. She studied Dulcimer with professor Karl-Heinz Schickhaus at the Linzer Bruckner Conservatory, where she completed a degree in instrument education in 1997 and an advanced training course diploma in 2002, both with excellence. Afterwards, she continued her studies in Munich with Birgit Stolzenburg-De Biasio. Presently, she is studying at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis where she has the opportunity to further expand her knowledge and experience. During her studies in Linz, Margit Übellacker taught at different music schools in Lower and Upper Austria. As a performer of early and contemporary music for the Psaltery, Dulcimer and Dulcemelos she gives concerts in Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Russia, England and Switzerland. As a soloist and chamber musician, she's performed with L'Orfeo Barockorchester Linz (Michi Gaigg), Concilium Musicum Wien (Paul Angerer), L'Arpeggiata (Christina Pluhar), Ensemble La Gioia Armonica, Ensemble Dulce Melos Basel, as well as Orchestre de Radio France and Orchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunks.

Il Ballarino
The members of the dance company Il Ballarino - Bruna Gondoni, Marco Bendoni, Romina Pidone and Paolo Pagni - are professional dancers, who specialize in dance of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Il Ballarino was established in 1983, by Andrea Francalanci and concentrates on exploration of old choreographies, as well as performance of original theatrical pieces. Il Ballarino appears in important festivals in Utrecht, Sablé, Ambronay, Glasgow, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Chigiana. They can also be seen in Siena, Cremona, Paris, Brussels, Tunis, Buenos Aires, Tokyo and others. They work together with such great conductors like Alan Curtis, René Clemencic, Anthony Rooley, Andrew Parrot, Warwick Edwards, Jordi Savall, Gabriel Garrido, Chiara Banchini, Roberto Gini, Jean Tubéry, Christina Pluhar and Denis Rasin-Dadre.
Some of the most important productions of the ensemble have been:
• "Tempore et Mesura" with the Ensemble Ris et Danceries with Francine Lancelot
• "Les Danaïdes" under the directions of Gianluigi Gelmetti
• "La Dafne", "Orfeo", "La liberazione di Ruggero dall'isola di Alcina", "Le Ballet comique de la Royone", "La Gerusalemme liberata", "Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda" with the Ensemble Elyma directed by Gabriel Garrido
• "L'anfiparnaso" with L'Umor Allegro
• "L'Italie baroque" with L'Arpeggiata directed by Christina Pluhar
• "Pazzia senile" under the direction of Guido Balestracci
• "Tarantella napoletana" with L'Arpeggiata

Nick Nguyen
Nick Nguyen was born in 1958, in Saigon. After professional training in acting and mime, he concentrated himself on classical dance. He began his career at the National Ballet of Ecuador in Quito, where he was discovered by Mary Day, who brought him to the Washington Ballet in Washington D. C. (USA). Upon his return to France, he met Francine Landelot who invited him to be a part of her group. For eight years, he has been a member of Grouppe Ris e Danceries, where he works, along with his activities as a dancer, on the exploration of baroque dance. As a specialist in the repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries, he participated in numerous opera productions with Les Arts Florissants ("Athis", "Les Indes Galantes", "Hippolyte et Aricie", "Médée", "Fairy Queen"). Later on, he pursued a soloist career with Fêtes Galantes (Béatrice Massin), Ana Yepes, and L'Eventail (Marie Geneviève Massé). He works, often, on choreography of operas and gives lectures on baroque dance.

CV en français (PDF 123 kb)