music

ART + CULTURE

Kavinya Monthe Ndumbu: on debut single “Unlucky”

Crushingly beautiful and oozing with musical references such as Mary J Blige, Alicia Keys and Snoh Aalegra, Unlucky is a love song by Kavinya.

ART + CULTURE

Mozart and Figaro in Vienna: a sumptuous new musical play by Hershey Felder

Imagine two hours of operatic entertainment interspersed with humour in the comfort of your own home: that’s what Canadian creative genius Hershey Felder has achieved in his latest (and perhaps ...

ART + CULTURE

Alexander Pereira talks about the new Sala Zubin Mehta

Alexander Pereira became the head of Florence’s leading musical foundation, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, in December 2019. In this exclusive interview for DF Magazine, the Superintendent tells us about the inauguration ...

ART + CULTURE

The player in the photo: Jacob Ventura

On November 7, 2020, The Florentine published Francesco Spighi’s iconic photograph of a lone violinist performing in front of the Uffizi, 20 minutes before curfew descended for yet another night.  ...

ART + CULTURE

Dante and Beatrice: an eternal love story

In a small corridor in the grand Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of Florentine government since its first stone was laid in 1299, a carved mask stands before a background of ...

COMMUNITY

Patience and clarity: meet James Short

James Short is the multi-talented director of music and deputy churchwarden at St. Mark’s English Church. He speaks with Caroline Savage about his music, life and the roles he plays ...

ART + CULTURE

Mascarade Opera Studio: notes in the air

The late 16th-century façades of via il Prato are significantly conservative by Florentine standards. One imagines that the structures, with their imposing entrances and hard-edged rectangular lines, might have been ...

ART + CULTURE

For Fiesole: performing Gershwin at the Roman amphitheatre

A Florentine friend, Filippo Ciabatti, now residing in the United States as conductor of the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, sent me a photo of myself in the role of American composer ...

ART + CULTURE

Argiano Baroque Music Festival: a melodic mix in the Montalcino countryside

Glasses chink as the concert bell chimes and the centuries-old gates peel back into the terracotta-tiled courtyard. It’s a magical introduction to the evening of music that awaits at the ...

VIDEO

Andrea Bocelli speaks with The Florentine

  The renowned Italian tenor speaks with The Florentine about the Andrea Bocelli Foundation’s ten year anniversary and their education-focused projects.   Read more about the Andrea Bocelli Foundation here, ...

ART + CULTURE

A magical Tuscan road to music: Incontri in Terra di Siena

In 1924, just after being married, Antonio and Iris Origo purchased a rundown 15th-century villa named La Foce on the via Francigena in Val d’Orcia. Restoring the property became their ...

ART + CULTURE

Backstage at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is legendary. It takes its name from the age-old Florentine May holidays, when nobility and civilians alike would decorate all of Florence with spring blooms to ...

ART + CULTURE

Fanfara Station: music all over the map

It’s a sunny afternoon in May when I virtually meet up with Fanfara Station band members Marco Dalmasso, Charles Ferris and Marzouk Mejri, the larger-than-life trio that is bringing the ...

ART + CULTURE

Ireland meets Italy: Willos’ folk music

Stephanie Martin left Belfast in Northern Ireland for Siena, travelling with an Englishman. Together they sold olive oil on an idyllic 12 acres of land, living the Tuscan dream. A ...

THINGS TO DO

Live music returns to Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

We’ve waited for what has felt like an eternity for so many aspects of life to open back up again, and live music was undoubtedly one of the most missed. ...

ART + CULTURE

All the lost albums

When Boccaccio’s ten-person brigata flocked to the isolated countryside during the plague, music set the rhythm to their days, acting as a cure-all for the biological and the social body. ...

ART + CULTURE

Elvira Gemignani Puccini

On November 29, 1924, aged 65, the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini died of a heart attack as a result of radiation treatment he was undergoing for throat cancer at the ...

ART + CULTURE

At the pub (when we could) with Benson Taylor

It’s an overcast Friday afternoon as I sit down with Benson Taylor in the pub in piazza Santa Maria Novella. The composer and producer is usually making music in his ...

ART + CULTURE

The power of Puccini: Gianni Schicchi and Dante

It was a grey wintry afternoon in a 1980s Montreal. The snow was piled high and the streets had developed a dirty sludge, but there, on a street called Sherbrooke, ...

ART + CULTURE

When music transcends language: Coriandoli Elettronici

Some might balk at the idea of undertaking a professional collaboration without the firm footing of a shared language. However, American drummer and electronic musician Mark DiFlorio and Italian singer-songwriter ...

ART + CULTURE

A Santo Spirito lunch with Andre Thomas Halyard

Lockdown red became careful orange before turning to a liberal yellow, and a midday stop at an osteria once again became a possibility. I enter Osteria di Santo Spirito, at ...

ART + CULTURE

Behind the scenes: Hershey Felder’s Debussy

A lady is dressed in nineteenth-century garb as we walk into the farmhouse where “memory sequences” are being filmed between wooden beams and terracotta tiles. Hershey Felder’s latest online-only performance, ...

ART + CULTURE

The Magic Box

It all began when I was a very little boy, so I am told.   I was born in Montreal, one of North America’s oldest cities that held on fast ...

ART + CULTURE

Behind the scenes: Hershey Felder’s George Gershwin Alone

Walking down the central aisle and up the burgundy red felt steps onto the historic boards of Florence’s oldest theatre, Teatro della Pergola, stirred surreal feelings in these dark times ...

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