Merit to merit under the title of San Ranieri – L’Arno.it
– Luca Schieppati –
To the great Pisan pianist Maurizio Baglini was awarded the “Merit of merit under the title of San Ranieri”. We recall that the choice of the Accademia dei Disuniti is made in favor of those who have “brought prestige and honor to the name of the city of Pisa in the world”. The ceremony is scheduled for Thursday 16 June, in the church of the Knights, at 5.30 pm. This will be followed by a concert that the Maestro wanted to offer to the city, with music by Bach, Mozart And Chopin. Let me say that you were in Pisa, I would not miss the opportunity to listen to him. And to be, even for those who are not, it could – let’s say – a regular frequenter of chamber music, an exceptional “first time”.
I won’t go into words, because it would be good if he talked about music on Thursday. But I transcribe the official curriculum of the Maestro, just to get an idea. Visionary pianist, with a taste for musical challenges, Maurizio Baglini has an intense international concert career. Winner at 24 of the “Piano Master of World Music“In Montecarlo, he regularly performs at the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, at the Kennedy Center in Washington and is a guest of prestigious festivals, including La Roque d’Anthéron, Yokohama Piano Festival, Australian Chamber Music Festival, “Bergamo and Brescia International Piano Festival. He has played as a soloist with important ensembles including the Rai National Symphony Orchestra, the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, the Orchester Philharmonique de Monaco, the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra, and with conductors such as Luciano Acocella, Francesco Angelico, Marco Angius, John Axelrod, Antonello Allemandi, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Giampaolo Bisanti, Filippo Maria Bressan, Marcello Bufalini, Massimiliano Caldi, Tito Ceccherini, Daniel Cohen, Howard Griffiths, Armin Jordan, Seikyo Kim, Emanuel Krivine, Antonello Manacorda, Karl Martin, Donato Renzetti, Corrado Rovaris, Ola Rudner, Daniele Rustioni and Maximiano Valdes, Tobias Woegerer.
He is the dedicatory soloist of “Three Paintings“, Concerto for piano and orchestra by Francesco Filidei, which he premiered with the OSN Rai directed by Tito Ceccherini in streaming on Rai Cultura, Rai Radio 3, EuroRadio and broadcast on Rai5 in November 2020. In September 2021, “Tre Quadri” was performed by Baglini and Ceccherini, once again with the OSN Rai, in world premiere with the public, at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, for the Milano Musica Festival.
In 2022 he played as a soloist at the Ravenna Festival, under the direction of Daniel Harding, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, in a program that featured the piece by Azio Corghi “Tra la carne e il cielo”. The piece was commissioned to the composer by Baglini himself, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the death of Pier Paolo Pasolini and is dedicated to the cellist Silvia Chiesa. Maurizio Baglini’s record production for Decca / Universal, always welcomed by excellent reviews, includes keyboard music by Liszt, Brahms, Schubert, Domenico Scarlatti and Mussorgsky and the Live at Amiata Piano Festival series. Baglini is also producing Schumann’s complete piano and the first 5 CDs available so far are already considered a point of reference for interpretation. He is among the few virtuosos in the world to perform the “Ninth Symphony”By Beethoven in the transcendental piano transcription of Liszt. From 2008 to today he has been invited to try his hand at this dizzying masterpiece live on many prestigious stages – in cities including Rome, Milan, Cremona, Paris, Munich, Tel Aviv, Beirut, Rio de Janeiro – and in 2020 it surpassed the figure record of one hundred executions.
He gave birth to the innovative project “Web plan“In which his live interpretations – from Schumann’s Carnaval to the Pictures of an exhibition by Mussorgsky or Images by Debussy – are accompanied by video projections by the artist Giuseppe Andrea L’Abbate (La Roque d’Anthéron, Lisztomanias, Châteauroux, Emilia Feast of Romagna). Also passionate about the chamber repertoire, he shared the stage with Kristóf Baráti, Enrico Bronzi, Gautier Capuçon, Renaud Capuçon, Cinzia Forte, Corrado Giuffredi, Andrea Griminelli, Gabriele Pieranunzi, Roberto Prosseda, Massimo Quarta, the Quartetto della Scala and other illustrious colleagues. Since 2006 he has formed a stable duo with the cellist Silvia Chiesa, with whom he has over 250 concerts all over the world.
He is the artistic director ofPiano Festival of the Amiata, the international music festival which he founded in 2005 and which has been held since 2015 at the Bertarelli Forum in Poggi del Sasso (Grosseto, Tuscany). Since 2013 he has been artistic consultant for music and dance of the “Verdi” Municipal Theater of Pordenone which in recent years has created exclusive concerts for Italy, has created an editorial series in collaboration with Ets and has become the main partner of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester on his European tours. In 2019 he was appointed Honorary Member of Aiarp, the Italian Association of Piano Tuners and Repairers “for the high merits and important artistic contributions that his activity has brought to the cause of the piano”. He plays a Fazioli grancoda.
Luca Schieppati