Suzanne Bona

Markellos Chryssicos and Venice Baroque Orchestra decided to feature selections from various settings of the story L’OLIMPIADE. Dozens of composers have set the libretto to music, and this compilation includes settings by Leonardo Leo, Johann Adolf Hasse, Giuseppe Sarti, Josef Mysliveček, Giovanni Paisiello, Davide Perez, Florian Leopold Gassmann, and many others. Use the link below […]

As the Paris Olympics continue, we’re having a marathon listening tour of some of the numerous opera settings of Pietro Metastasio’s libretto for THE OLYMPIAD. Today’s Beautiful Music is Domenico Cimarosa’s setting, performed by Christophe Rousset leading Les Talens Lyriques. It’s from their recording released in May 2024.

Today’s Beautiful Music is another setting of L’OLIMPIADE, an opera with a plot by Pietro Metastasio, and set to music by more than 50 composers. This version is by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, composed in 1735.

Yesterday’s Beautiful Music featured Antonio Vivaldi’s opera setting of L’OLIMPIADE, based on a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. Today’s Beautiful Music features another composer’s version of the story. Baldassare Galuppi composed his setting in 1747, and it premiered in Milan in December of that year. This performance features Andrea Marcon & Venice Baroque Orchestra. There’s a

Antonio Vivaldi’s opera L’OLIMPIADE RV 722 premiered in Venice in 1734. The libretto by Pietro Metastasio was set to music by 50 composers over the years. Today’s Beautiful Music features Vivaldi’s version, performed by Federico Maria Sardelli and Musica Viva. There’s a link below to the plot of L’OLIMPIADE. http://operascotland.org/opera/430/Olimpiade#:~:text=The%20action%20takes%20place%20near,and%20run%20in%20the%20Games.

The 2024 Olympic Games open today in Paris, and even if you’re not a sports fan, today’s Beautiful Music will still be stirring and exciting! It’s a spectacular presentation of BUGLER’S DREAM – OLYMPIC FANFARE, a joint effort by French composer and arranger Leo Arnaud and Grammy-winning American film composer John Williams. This thrilling performance

Alexandra Whittingham says that the groups that made her want to play guitar are Def Leppard and the Scorpions, while Julian Bream had the guitar sound she wants to emulate. She pursued her musical training at Chetham’s School of Music (where she is now a faculty member!) and at The Royal Academy of Music in London.

Born in the UK, soprano Olivia Warburton graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, London, and became a young artist at the Georg Solti Accademia and the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar. The prize winner at the 1st International Haydn Competition in Vienna and Finalist in the 2022 Renata Tebaldi Competition, Olivia Warburton says that her career

Xiaowen Shang is a London-based pianist and harpsichordist from China. The Royal Academy of Music student’s debut album, MUSIC OF SILENCE, was released in April 2024. Xiaowen Shang’s bio is linked below. Today’s Beautiful Music features her MUSIC OF SILENCE program, performed in April 2024 in the Academy Wigmore Series. https://www.xiaowenshangmusic.com

Austrian musician Aaron Pilsan (b.1995) started playing piano at age 5, and says that Johann Sebastian Bach is the reason he is a musician today. Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier has a particular place in Aaron Pilsan’s heart and today’s Beautiful Music features this accomplished young pianist playing the Prelude and Fugue in C BWV846. There’s