FESTIVAL DUNI 2025

 

 

 

FESTIVAL DUNI 2025 (26th ed.) – “PATRIMONI SONORI” 

The Festival Duni is now in its 26th year and is one of the longest-running and most established events on the early music scene in Italy, and one of the few affiliated with REMA in the area. 2025 is a year rich in celebrations of musicians of the past, and not by chance we linked this edition to the theme of “cultural heritage”: from the 500th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina to the 300th anniversary of the death of Alessandro Scarlatti, the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel, and the 250th anniversary of the death in Paris of Egidio Romualdo Duni, the most important figure born in Matera, after whom the Festival is named. But this heritage will also be evoked through specific moments in this year's programme, starting with the opening on 28 September with the Oratorio di San Martino, a new masterpiece by Donato Ricchezza, the 17th-century musician born in Matera who became one of the leading figures in sacred music in Naples, whose music is entirely preserved among the treasures of the Girolamini Library and Complex in Naples, once again through the performance of the Cappella Neapolitana conducted by Antonio Florio, the discoverer of Ricchezza's music. This concert, held in the enchanting church of San Pietro Caveoso, and the next one, at Casa Cava on 2 October,  with the Orfeo Futuro ensemble dedicated to the music of Gian Francesco Di Majo (a Neapolitan musician esteemed and imitated by Mozart) and the voice of Angelica Disanto, are organised in fruitful collaboration with the “Tempio Armonico” festival of the Girolamini Library in Naples. Like soprano Disanto, countertenor Niccolò Balducci was also born artistically in Matera, from where he began a prestigious European career: his return to the Festival takes place with a virtuoso recital in duo with guitarist Claudia Dalia. The centenaries of Palestrina and Alessandro Scarlatti are celebrated together in an original programme staged by the Odhecaton ensemble conducted by Paolo Da Col, considered the leading Italian group for Renaissance music in the world. The calibre of the invited musicians is very high, demonstrating the international growth of the Festival. Consider Spanish harpsichordist Amaya Fernández Pozuelo (with a programme combining two of her favourite composers, Bach and Domenico Scarlatti, to whom she has dedicated award-winning recordings); the return of the world's leading expert on the vihuela, Australian John Griffiths, with a programme on Spain's “Siglo de oro”; the first appearance at the Festival of Mara Galassi, the pioneer of the rediscovery of the Baroque harp in Italy, who will be accompanied for the occasion by Neapolitan-Lucanian mandolinist Mauro Squillante and will also bring an authentic antique harp from Viggiano. (These last two concerts will take place in Miglionico Castle, thanks to a new collaboration with the municipality of this city of art). 

Of course, our Festival would not be complete without its main protagonist, Egidio Romualdo Duni, who will be present at various moments during the season: at the opening of the “Baroque and Neo-Baroque Marathon in France” on 26 October (a new opportunity for collaboration with the Matera Symphony Orchestra, which will be performing on the same evening, after the screening of an historical film, in a concert conducted by Saverio Vizziello featuring 20th-century French music inspired by the Baroque, including the celebrated Maurice Ravel -  following on from the successful marathons of previous years, dedicated to Molière and Pulcinella). The prestigious French group Les Paladins, conducted by Jerôme Correas, will perform in Matera for the first time, playing pieces by Duni alongside those of the great French composers of his time, Couperin and Rameau. 

In November, Filomena Bonafide, a harpsichordist and scholar from Basilicata, will present her surprising discovery: harpsichord pieces by Egidio Duni published in Paris by Michel Corrette. (The two harpsichord concerts will be preceded by meetings with students from the University of Basilicata in collaboration with Universa Musica). Finally, Egidio Duni's symphonies also appear in the programme dedicated to Vivaldi (a Venetian composer with maternal roots in Pomarico) with the Duni Festival Baroque Orchestra conducted by its permanent conductor Francesco D'Orazio, also a violin soloist, together with an exceptional recorder virtuoso, Aldo Abreu, professor at the New England Conservatory and Boston University. Almost all of the concerts we have listed will take place in two wonderful historic buildings overlooking the Sassi di Matera, namely Palazzo Malvezzi and Viceconte. A major new feature of this edition is the re-evaluation of another musician from Matera, Antonio Duni, Egidio's brother, who led an adventurous life that took him across Europe from Spain to Russia and ended in Germany. On 31 October, musicologist Galliano Ciliberti and violinist and writer Tom Suárez, a descendant of Antonio and discoverer of his sonatas, recorded on a Brilliant Classics CD by the Matera-based group DuniEnsemble, will discuss this topic together with harpsichordist Claudia Di Lorenzo. The following evening, the same musicians will come together in an orchestral group, recently formed, named after Antonio Duni, for a second concert dedicated to symphonies, again with a musicological presentation. The conclusion of the Festival at the Teatro Guerrieri on 26 November will once again be marked by the internationalism that connects Matera to Europe and the Mediterranean, through a show that explores Ovid's mythical heroines, and Ariadne in particular, from a “southern” perspective, directed by Olivier Lexa. The Dialogos ensemble, founded in Croatia and directed by Katarina Livljanić, is one of the most famous medieval music ensembles and this time features the participation of Apulian singer-actor Pino De Vittorio.  

It is worth mentioning the commitment of the Duni Festival to schools in the province of Matera, thanks to a multi-year project led by Vania Cauzillo with the company L'Albero, preparatory to a specific opera production in 2026 in collaboration with Italian schools in Paris, and the symbolic preparation, with the penultimate concert of this edition, for the year 2026 when Matera will be the Mediterranean Capital of Culture and Dialogue: the concert of Tunisian music by the Maluf System ensemble (which takes place on 22 November, the feast day of the patron saint of music, Saint Cecilia, at the Eco Verticale site) demonstrates the urgent need to initiate intercultural dialogue, which music facilitates by breaking down language barriers (it is no coincidence that, alongside an Arabic music workshop, the musicians will also hold an Arabic cooking workshop, all in collaboration with the Fondazione Matera 2019-2026). And the places we have mentioned are all in the Sassi, demonstrating a further commitment to the protection and enhancement of the great cultural heritage of Basilicata.

Enjoy listening!

Dinko Fabris 

Musicologist and Artistic Director

Festival Duni, Matera