Evening Concert: Café Littéraire

Do you feel like relaxing after a week of work by listening to a concert and sharing some drinks at Pandora Studio? Do not hesitate, come and join us!

Enjoy this performance called "Café Littéraire" with the soprano Alessandra Marangon and the harpist Maria Palma.

In this concert the story of the poet Paul Verlaine will be told through his poems, and the music that has been composed on them.

In the concert the poems will be recited between the different pieces, and the performers will briefly tell the audience what is special of each poem and piece.  

The first half of the program is based on pieces inspired by Paul Verlaine and the second half is French music of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century.

Program:

G. Fauré (1845-1924)

En sourdine

Poldowski (1880-1932)

En sourdine

R. Hahn (1874-1947)

 L’Heure exquise

G. Fauré (1845-1924)

Une sainte en son auréole

Une châtelaine en sa tour

J. Cras (1879-1932)

L’espoire luit

E. Varèse (1883-1965)

Un grand sommeil noir

M. Tournier (1924-2016)

Sonatine op. 30

I. Allegrement

II. Calme et expressif

Nirantar Yakthumba

T.b.d. *première

Biographies:

Alessandra Marangon

Alessandra is an Italian soprano. She studied Opera Singing in her hometown of Padua (Conservatorio di Musica Cesare Pollini) and she is currently a Master student at Koninklijk Conservatorium - Den Haag under the guidance of the dutch

tenor Amand Hekkers. During her studies, she participated in masterclasses and opera studios with Annunziata Lia Lantieri, Barbara Frittoli, Ramón Vargas, Michael Chance, Gianmaria Aliverta and Floris Visser.

Alessandra made her debut in 2017 as Prima Conversa in Puccini’s Suor Angelica produced by Cantiere all’Opera and

directed by Mara Zampieri at Teatro Barbarigo (Padova) and in 2019 as Annina in Verdi’s La Traviata produced by Figaro

Opera Society (Venice). She also worked in multiple occasions as a choir member and collaborated with the Orchestra di

Padova e del Veneto directed by Marco Angius.

Beside this, she specialized in Ancient Greek Drama, performing in numerous productions in the Greek Theatre of Syracuse and in the archaeological site of Akrai for the National Institute of Ancient Drama (INDA).

Maria Palma

Maria Palma is an Italian harpist. She started playing the harp at the age of six, and three years later she entered the Conservatoire “A. Casella” in L’Aquila, where she graduated in 2018 with honors, under the guidance of the harpist Maria di Giulio. In the same year, she won the Erasmus scholarship to study in the Royal Conservatoire in Den Haag, Netherlands. Willing to develop further her musical artistry, she decided to stay there and entered the Master’s program in Classical Harp, in which she is currently studying with Sylvain Blassel and Ernestine Stoop.

She participated to the masterclasses of the renowned harpists Sasha Boldachev, Carolina Coimbra, and the famous composer John Adams, playing with the Spaceship Ensemble in the Royal Conservatoire in Den Haag, and attending the award ceremony for the Erasmusprijs 2019 in the Royal Palace in Amsterdam. In 2018 she won the first prize in the National audition “Solisti e orchestra” held in L’Aquila, which let her perform as a soloist with the orchestra, playing the Mozart Concerto for flute and harp K299 in the Auditorium del Parco in L’Aquila.

Maria works in very different musical contexts, ranging from orchestral, chamber music, and solo activities. She performed in many halls in the Netherlands and Italy, such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, San Carlo Theatre in Napoli, Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht, De Doelen in Rotterdam, Amare, Korzo theatre, Zuiderstrand Theatre in The Hague, and many others, taking part in many orchestral projects with the Orchestra del Conservatorio Casella, the Hesperion Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, the Sweelinck Orchestra and others. She also worked as a Harp Coach in the Youth Orchestra “Musica in crescendo” in Vasto, Italy.

Maria is an eager promoter of contemporary music: she played in the Dutch Harp Festival in May 2021 and in the Gaudeamus Festival in September 2020, in the beautiful hall of TivoliVredenburh in Utrecht, with the Harp Sirens. In 2019 she played in the Korzo Theatre in Den Haag for the world première of “Two pieces for pedal harp”, which was dedicated to her by the Dutch composer Maarten Bauers. She is also a member of the Spaceship Ensemble, a contemporary music group with a unique instrumental set-up, with whom she presented the “Comic Book Concert” in Studio Loos, The Hague, in April 2021. Maria also joined the concert activities of the Ensemble Academy in The Hague.

The interest in various musical styles and the connection with other art forms make Maria a very eclectic musician. In particular, her activity is focused on the relation with poetical works of different authors, that she expresses through the voice of her harp.