BIOGRAPHY

Contrarco Baroque Ensemble was founded at the Conservatorio Agostino Steffani in Castelfranco Veneto, a lively town 40 kilometers from Venice that boasts an excellent early music department.

From the very beginning, a common style and aesthetic was shared within the ensemble, reflected in a constant search for fluidity and virtuosity of the bow, combined with a quest for a sound that is never too heavy or edgy, capable of capturing the listener by its roundness and elegance. Hence, Contrarco's research has always focused on harmonic and rhetorical analysis, even in its smallest details, thus taking each piece to the limit of its expressive possibilities.

 

The members of Contrarco have graduated from some of the most prestigious early music schools, including Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Universität Mozarteum Salzburg, Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag. Collaborations with some of the most important ensembles specializing in early music, such as Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca, Venice Baroque Orchestra, European Union Baroque Orchestra, La Cetra Barockorchester, Accademia Bizantina, Akademie für Alte Musik Brüneck, Il Pomo d'Oro, have also been highly formative.

Prominent among the many concerts given by the ensemble in recent years are appearances at Urbino Musica Antica, Alte Musik Live Berlin and 28 Chairs in the United States.

 

"Brilliance, exuberance, invention, conviviality of feelings for masterpieces that resonated with ideal, accomplished and flawless rendering, by virtue of a degree of specialization and competence of the musicians, in total understanding with each other, who made it clear without hesitation how much actuality and life there is in the Italian repertoire of the seventeenth-eighteenth century."

 

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