Teodoro Anzellotti

For long time, the accordion was treated as the poor relation in the world of classical music. That is, until Teodoro Anzelotti made himself heard! His unbounded technique and musicality compelling respect from friend and foe alike, he has won a place for the instrument in the classical concert hall. He has performed with leading symphony orchestras, has recorded music from Bach to Cage on CD and has convinced no end of composers to write for the instrument. Indeed, more than three hundred works have been composed for him. One of them is Luciano Berio's 'Sequenza XIII', written in close co-operation with Anzellotti himself - a 'Chanson' for accordion, which does not disguise its roots in folk music. Besides new music, Anzelotti works untiringly to add existing works to the accordion repertoire - Bach's monumental Goldberg Variations, for example, which enables him to demonstrate the accordion's ability to handle complex polyphony and subtle articulation. The concert is preceded by a lecture recital in which he sketches the wild career of the instrument, from the early days at the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present.