Co-presented with Early Music Vancouver
Stefano Maiorana (Italy)
Secret Pages for Theorbo
Saturday, April 26, 2025 | 8pm
Pacific Spirit United Church (2195 W. 45th Ave) [map]
Artist chat at 7:15pm
Secret Pages is a set of antique and newly composed music for theorbo – an instrument similar to a lute – performed by Italian early music virtuoso, Stefano Maiorana. In Secret Pages the sequence of the pieces creates an atmospheric soundscape evoking – with the faintest of brushstrokes – the hallucinatory beauty of Venice. The musical sequence interleaves 20 works by two composers with profound connections to Venice: Johann Hieronymus Kapsberger (c1580-1651), who spent his formative years in the ‘serene republic’, and the Venetian Claudio Ambrosini (b1948).
Exploiting the soft resonance of the theorbo, Kapsberger’s pieces are at once intimate and sonorous: improvisatory in spirit, they roam and ruminate and dance by turns. Each one flows like liquid into Ambrosini’s experimental soundworld, the starting point for which was imagining the ‘secret notebooks’ of Kapsberger – fictional pages of daringly exploratory music. From those imagined sketches, Ambrosini takes Baroque themes and motifs, arabesques and embellishments and, mingling them with the elemental sounds of Venice, fragments and reworks them as sonic memories. The musical stream of consciousness is articulated by soundscape recordings that fleetingly capture the essence of Venice: the lapping and crashing of waves, chiming bells and cawing gulls, moored ships and bobbing gondolas, all broadcasted in an immersive surround audio setup of custom made wood resonators.
About Stefano Maiorana
Stefano Maiorana earned a Diploma in Classical Guitar at the Conservatorio S. Cecilia in Rome. Continuing his studies at Conservatorio S. Cecilia, he obtained a Level II Degree with honours in Classical Guitar and a Level II Degree with honours and special commendation in lute and early plucked-string instruments. He has followed guitar specialisation courses at the Accademia Chigiana, and further advanced courses in early music at Fima, Urbino. He graduated in ‘Architecture and Construction Techniques’ at the Prima Facoltà di Architettura de La Sapienza.
He has performed in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Swiss, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Australia and Mongolia, as soloist and basso continuo player for festivals or concert seasons (Hochschule für Künste in Bremen during the International Lute Festival, at the Italian Institute of culture in Oslo and at the Italian Institute of culture in Stockholm, the Auditorium Parco della Musica and Teatro Olimpico in Rome, the Romea Theatre in Murcia, the Muse Theatre in Ancona, the Maison de l’Italie – Cité internationale universitaire in Paris, the Groteska Theatre in Krakow, in the Festivals Roma Barocco, Materia Prima, Platonov Arts, Barocco di Viterbo, Antiqua, Düsseldorf Festival, Early Music Festival, Castelnuovo-Tedesco Guitar Festival, Emufest, Nuova Consonanza, Tuscia and Roma Tre University, Accademia Filarmonica Romana, etc.). In 2017 he was invited as soloist by the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra to perform in the “Spanish Baroque” tour in Australia (Sydney City Recital Hall, Melbourne Recital Hall and Queensland Performing Arts Center).
His solo CDs, “Intavolatura” (Fra Bernardo label) with music by Kapsberger for theorbo and “Entre dos almas” (Arcana-Outhere Music label) with music by Santiago de Murcia for baroque guitar, received enthusiastic reviews by European, Canadian and American magazines.
“Claudio Ambrosini: Kapsberger, Secret Pages” (Arcana) is BBC Music Magazine’s “Instrumental Choice” in May issue 2023.
He is professor of Lute Performance at the Briccialdi Conservatory in Terni.
Top photo: Stefano Maiorana, photo by Francesca Pompei.
