Auser Musici

The creation of the ensemble came about accidentally, and it was by chance that flautist Carlo Ipata uncovered a bank of works of an exceptional and long-lost Tuscan Baroque repertoire, filled with pages and pages of music that are best representative of the histories of both Italian and European music.

It is the story of a beginning and a project that united numerous musicians, unanimous in their passion, and how this led to the creation of an orchestra, a music publishing house, and a festival in historical locations in Tuscany.

Founded in 1997 by Carlo Ipaca, Auser Musici is a vocal and instrumental ensemble that takes its name from an ancient river in a suburb of Pisa. It brings together musicians and singers with a solid and international experience of performing Baroque music on instruments of the period.

From the very start musicians were not the only ones involved. Historians, musicologists, recording companies and one of the most beautiful Italian theatres, Teatro di Pisa, all began to play a part in this venture. The orchestra has been resident at the Teatro di Pisa since 2001.

The ensemble performs in different productions in its hometown and shines in musical events throughout the region, the whole of Italy and abroad. What motivates and unites them is Tuscan and Italian music that was once played in courts, palaces and duchies in times past. This gives the ensemble a chance to embrace a very large period of history that ranges from instrumental music, to string quartets, to vocal music, to quintets, cantatas, concerti grossi, and opera in between.

Carlo Ipata has spent years considering the repertoire of this region and thus also becme involved with the opening of a music publishing house, Tesori Musicali Toscani, through which he seeks to realise his objective of combining scientific theory and musical practice.

The end result, of this work, to be found in the ensemble’s concerts and recordings of these pieces, is to be attributed in part to the collaboration between the ensemble’s performers and a group of musicologists. In their work together, not only did they seek original sources, but they also acquired a profound understanding of subjects relative to the pieces’ historical circumstances and style.

The repertoire of Auser Musici that has been performed throughout concerts and premieres has allowed the ensemble to reconstruct important pages of musical history in Tuscany, taking into consideration also the contact that was established between these local composers and their European contemporaries.

The success of their recent tours in Italy and abroad, in Germany (Berliner Tage für Alte Musik, The Berlin Museum of Instruments), in the USA (Miami Baroque Festival), in Spain (Boccherini celebrations), Russia (Early Music Festival, St Petersburg), Sweden (Early Music Festival, Stockholm), Slovenia (Brezice Festival), Croatia (Zagreb Baroque Festival), Italy (Naples, Centro della Cappella dei Turchini, Teatro di Modena, Scuola Grande Venise,..) Israel (Tel Aviv, Recanati Auditorium), France (Festival de l’Abbaye de St Michel en Thierache, Festival de Laon, Festival de Froville, Nantes, Gramat,..), as well as the positive reception of their discs in CD Classica, Amadeus, Klassik Heute, Early Music Magazine and Goldberg Magazine, is all evidence of the public’s growing interest in the Ensemble’s work throughout the years. Their recordings have been broadcast by Radio Vaticana, Radio 3, Radio France, the BBC, and Radio Classica.

In 2009 Auser Musici realised a dramma giocoso of the 18th century by Antonio Cesti, Le Disgrazie d’Amore (1667), in a world premiere at the Teatro di Pisa directed by Stephen Medcalf with the participation of soloists Maria Grazia Schiavo, Furio Zanasi, Paolo Lopez, Elena Cecchi Fedi, Martin Oro, Filippo Mineccia and others. The production received unanimous praise on an international level and created great enthusiasm among its spectators.

A recording devoted entirely to flute concertos by Neapolitan composers such as Jommelli, De Majo, Prota and Rava under the Hyperion label in 2011 and with Carlo Ipata as soloist was signalled out by the prestigious magazine Gramophone, as well as Editor’s Choice.

In September and October 2010 Auser Musici was a guest at numerous national and international prestigious musical institutions such as la Sagra Musicale Umbra, Amici della Musica in Florence, Festival de Laon, Scuola Grande Evangelista in Venice with the support of the Bru-Zane Foundation, Centre de musique romantique française, Festival Grandezze e Meraviglie in Modena, for a project intended to realise the complete works of Tuscan composer Luigi Cherubini on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of his birth, with the participation of soprano Maria Grazia Schiavo. Following this tour, Auser Musici released a recording of arias and symphonies by the composer under the Hyperion label in 2012.

In 2012 Auser Musici opened the Blumental International Music Festival in Tel Aviv, took part in the Festival de Musique de l’abbaye de St Michel en Thierache with the mezzo-soprano Giuseppina Bridelli, with a programme of arias by Gasparini, Scarlatti and works by Vivaldi, and then took part in the Festival de Froville with the counter-tenor David Hansen in a programme with works by Handel and Gasparini.

In summer 2012 the ensemble performed Scarlatti’s opera Gli Equivoci nel Sembiante with four young and talented soloists: Giuseppina Bridelli, Manuela Ranno, Alberto Allegrezza, Matteo Mezzaro and a staging by Dagny Mueller: a coproduction with the Festival Opéra Barga in Tuscany. This production was revived at the Festival Sevicq Brezice in Slovenia and in Naples in February 2013.

In 2013 Auser Musici appeared at the Handel Konzerthaus in Halle in Germany with the counter-tenor Filippo Mineccia on the occasion of the anniversary of Handel’s birth. They also took part in a wealth of other festivals and concert seasons with their regular soloists. In March, they realised Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona at the Teatro di Pisa and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and during the summer participated in the Festival Opera Barga with an oratorio for many voices by Giovanni Colonna, La caduta di Gierusalemme.

In April 2013 Auser Musici released their second recording, “Neapolitan Flute Concertos”, with Carlo Ipata as soloist. It featured works by Prota, Rava and Jommelli.

Other artistic collaborations centred on the baroque and late 18th century repertoire are already arranged for the 2013-2013 season. They will devote attention in particular to the Intermezzo and unpublished composers of opera, as well as to sacred music.

In 2014 Auser Musici will devote itself to a project centred on the music of Francesco Gasparini, le Bajazet d’une part and the first modern world premiere of Bach’s transcription of his Missa Canonica.

Auser Musici is privileged to be supported by the Fondazione Pisa.