Hans Werner Henze

El Cimarron
Florence Dec. 2014|
Lausanne Jan. 2015
Artistic Director
Luigi Attademo Murmuris Teatro
El Cimarrn (The Runaway Slave) is a composition which the German composer Hans
Werner Henze wrote - during his staying in Cuba - in 19691970. It is subtitled "Biography
of the runaway slave Esteban Montejo", and is based around the autobiographical
passages recounted by Montejo (who was also a veteran of the Cuban War of
Independence) to Miguel Barnet in 1963. The reduction and the translation of the text was
made by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Henze described the score as a recital for four
musicians: a baritone who portrays El Cimarron himself, a guitarist, a flautist and a
percussionist, although all four musicians play percussion instruments during the
performance. The flautist also plays the Japanese ryuteki and the Italian scacciapensieri, as
well as the four conventional orchestral flutes. The number (and the kind) of percussions is
very large, and often Henze demands two players in the score (part of percussions are
played by the guitarist when he doesn't any part to play). Also the percussionist has to work
a lot to make all the effects requested by Henze. Probably it is one of more complex
percussion's instrumentarium used in a score of chamber music.
The work is divided into fifteen "tableaux", sometimes songs, sometimes
"recitativo" (understanding this word in a non-conventional meaning), in which the
composer makes several vocal demands to the baritone, including laughter, whistling,
shouting, screaming and even falsetto.

The Musicians
Mario Caroli started the flute at the age of 14 and he got his soloist diploma at the age of 19. He was awarded, when he was 22
years old, the coveted "Kranichsteiner Musikpreis" at Darmstadt. He has since enjoyed a highly successful solo career as one of the
most remarkable flutists of his generation. The conception of his programs and his wide repertoire show an absolute authentic and
personal approach of the profession. In his concerts he combines works by Marin Marais and Brian Ferneyhough with a disarming
simplicity. There are no barriers between the different stylistic areas for him and he refuses to be seen as a "specialist" in limited
repertoire genres. Mario Caroli belongs to the small circle of artists able to play a classical concerto as well as the most complex
contemporary piece with the same vitality and virtuosity.
Mario Caroli appears regularly in the greatest concert halls of the world. He is the only contemporary flutist having performed on
monographic concerts the complete works for the flute by Sciarrino, Ferneyhough and Jolivet. Interpretations of a stunning virtuosity,
fantasy and energy which made critics call him a "phenomenon".
An interpreter of his own transcriptions (early, classical and romantic works), he is often seen playing very rare and monumental
scores: soloist in "Cantare con silenzio" by Sciarrino, in the "Flute Concerto" by Feldman, in Nonos "Prometeo", in the complete
cycle of "Carceri dinvenzione" by Ferneyhough and in Boulez "...Explosante-fixe..."; main role in Madernas "Hyperion" as well as
chamber music player in the Feldmans trio (five hours long) "For Philip Guston", in "El Cimarron" by Henze or in "Marteau sans
matre" by Boulez. His discography contains approximately twenty titles. For his concerts, Mario does alternate a Muramatsu gold
flute and Miyazawa platinum flute.

Maurizio Leoni graduated from the Accademia Filarmonica Bolognese and the Bologna Conservatorio with honours in singing.
He made is debut in 1990 at the Walton Foundation in Ischia where, under the direction of Martin Isepp and Colin Graham begins
as Enrico in Il Campanello by G. Donizetti.
Buffo roles are in this period, the most appropriate to his versatile nature: from Leporello with M J.C. Malgoire in Tourcoing and
through all France, to Matilde di Shabran by G. Rossini at the Rossini Festival in Wildbad, to Il SIgnor Bruschiono, L'occaisione fa
il ladro, La scal di seta by G. Rossini at the Konzerthaus in Wien and at the Opera Comique in Paris conduct by C. Desderi, and to
Mamm'Agata in Le Convenienze e le Inconvenienze teatrali by G. Donizetti conduct by F. M. Carmnati.
Among these operas, start to creep the "twenties-century and contemporary world" that alway accompanied him and it has made
possible to debut over 12 works premiered: we had Die Teufel von Loudon by K. Pendercki at the Teatro Regio in Torino conducted
by Y. David and directed by J.C. Plaza, Gesualdo considered as a murder by L: Francesconi for MITO Festival in MIlano and
more: Salom at Teatro Comunale in Bologna with M D. Gatti and Pierluigi Pizzi, and Turandot by F. Busoni with the conducting of
L. Koenigs and directed by D. Krief and the hard but exciting experience in Il Prigioniero by L. Dallapiccola in Catania conducted by
Z. Pesko.

Maurizio Ben Omar graduated in percussion with full marks, studied piano and composition, too. He played in the most important
orchestras in Italy and he has held concerts like soloist and in chamber music in Europe, Africa, America and Oceania with
ensembles, soloists and conductors like: Claudio Abbado, Quartetto Arditti, Pierre Yves Artaud, Kees Boeke, Mario Brunello, Bruno
Canino, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Jill Feldmann, Andrea Lucchesini, Giuseppe Sinopoli. Composers like Bussotti, Corghi,
Donatoni, Einaudi, Gorli, Manca, Mosca, Sciarrino, Pisati, Solbiati, have dedicated own works to him. Hes teacher of percussion in
the Genova Conservatory; his students won national and international competitions. He recorded like soloist for Ricordi, Bmg Ariola
and Salabert. In 1985 he founded the percussions ensemble Naqqara.

Award-winning in several national and international competitions, among the others the Concours International dExcution
Musicale (CIEM) in Geneva (1995), Luigi Attademo was pupil of the guitarist-composer Angelo Gilardino. He has been invited as a
guest in several festivals and he has given the first performance of many contemporary works, playing on the Italian Networks RAI
and Rete Toscana Classica. Among his teachers, Julius Kalmar (conduction), composers as Giovanni Guanti, Dusan Bogdanovic
and Alessandro Solbiati, and the harpsichord player Emilia Fadini (Baroque music). He worked in the Archive of the Andrs
Segovias Foundation (Linares-Spain), to catalogue its manuscripts (published on the Spanish musicological magazine The Roseta),
and he discovered some unknown manuscripts of important composers, such as Jaume Pahissa, Alexandre Tansman, Gaspar
Cassad and others.
He recorded several CDs, particularly dedicated to Baroque music and to Segovia Repertoire. In the 2007, Guitar Review dedicated
an interview and a CD to his works. In 2010 he gave concerts in London, Madrid and in Australia, performing contemporary music
and two different projects about Villa-Lobos and Segovia, instead in 2011 he did a project on the Paganini music and another around
Bach music and his contemporaries. After his his cd dedicated to Scarlatti's Sonatas (2009), he made a double cd dedicated to
Bach music for lute, published by Brilliant Classics (2011). In 2012 he worked to a book and a CD on the "Paganini
Project" (contemporary music for guitar), published by the Sinfonica Editions and in a theatrical play dedicated to Bach's music
("Studio sullo stile di Bach", by Pier Paolo Pasolini). He recorded the complete works for guitar solo by Niccol Paganini, released
by Brilliant Classics in 2013.
He teaches at ISSM Gaetano Donizetti in Bergamo (Italy), and he is often invited as expert at the Geneva and Lausanne
Conservatories. In 2010, 2011 and 2013 he was invited to give a lectures/recitals at Royal Academy of Music of London.