Bonporti Baroque Orchestra

The Bonporti Baroque Orchestra (Euregiomusica project)

The orchestra accompanies the finalists of the Premio Bonporti since the first violin edition (2003).

Founded as Mitteleuropäisches Barockorchester, it has been active since 1998 on the initiative of the Academy of Early Music, as part of the largest international project Euregiomusica – Premio Bonporti. For several years in various parts of Northern Italy, Austria and Eastern Europe some significant initiatives to encourage the research and performance of early music have been undertaken. From this background, considering the vocations and areas of interest most congenial to each of the various partners, the proposal was made to work together on a common project, whose aim would be to stimulate new forms of collaboration and encourage the study and promotion of Central European early music heritage. The chief activity is productions and performances by Bonporti Baroque Orchestra & Choir, through annual courses whose aim is to improve young performers’ technical skills, both orchestral and choral. This involves musicians from all over Europe, but mainly from countries and organisations connected with the project. A period of study and documentation is followed up by a production phase with the staging of concerts. Having been awarded grants by the jury of the Premio Bonporti (International Competition for chamber music performed on period instruments, 1996-2008 presided by Gustav Leonhardt), musicians meet at various times of the year under the guidance of expert musical directors (Pàl Németh for the orchestra, Romano Vettori for the choir). After a final seminar given by well-known or emerging conductors, the musical programmes chosen for study are subsequently performed in public. In the year 2000, under the direction of Principal Guest Conductor, Barthold Kuijken, the Bonporti Baroque Orchestra & Choir performed F. J. Haydn’s Theresienmesse and this year sees the performance of Mozart’s Weissenhausmesse as well as J.Ch. Bach’s Dies Irae. Andrea Marcon conducted the first modern-day performance of J.S.Bach’s reworking of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with Salieri’s Krönungs-Te Deum and the Hassemesse by Tridentine composer D.Pasqui. Peter Neumann conducted music by J.S. Bach and Zelenka. Particular attention has been paid to the performance of sacred music from Poland (G. G. Gorczycki, In virtute tua, Litaniae de Providentia Divina). Other composers whose music has been performed include Cimarosa on the bicentenary of his death (2001), F. J. Haydn and G.B. Sammartini. Productions by Euregiomusica have been performed at the “Regional Festival of Sacred Music” in Trento and Bolzano, at “Music and Poetry in San Maurizio” in Milan, and in 2002 for the first time at Budapest and the Festival of Early Music at Cracov. Many programmes have been recorded in their entirety and subsequently broadcast over national radio by the Italian State Broadcasting Company (RAI). The Early Music Project, Euregiomusica, takes place with the patronage of the C.E.I. (Central European Initiative) and the collaboration of the Austrian National Radio, ORF. Other productions include the A. Scarlatti’s oratory Il Caino (Dux). Of particular significance is the repertoire, centered on the musical tradition of the Mitteleuropean area up to Mozart, with unusual or rare (Salmi a quattro cori of P. Lappi for Archbishop Lodron in Salzburg – 1621; D. Cimarosa, Giannina and Bernardone inaugural opera of the eighteenth-century theater of Rovereto (1998), the Mass “Santa Maria-Hassemesse” by D. Pasqui for the Imperial Court (Innsbruck 1765) For the 25. of the San Marco Concert (2013) and the 35. of the Academy of Music Ancient (2014) performed two major large-scale bands, respectively A. Lotti’s Missa Sapientiae and J.A. Hasse’s Missa in D for the inauguration of Dresden Catholic Church.
Participants, finalists and winners of the Premio Bonporti, regularly sit in the orchestra. For the Settenovecento Festival (2017-2018) the BBO produced respectively the Vespri musicali di San Marco (C. Monteverdi) – first performance in the Basilica of S. Barbara in Mantua in the Monteverdi year – and Messia by G.F. Handel in the eighteenth-century version of Florence of 1768. In 2022 on the occasion of the collaboration with the famous St. Florianer Sängerknaben presented the Chandos Anthems by G.F. Handel and in the first modern performance a Te Deum by D. Pasqui and a new violin concerto by G. Tartini.