This disc is an invitation to explore one of the great attractions of Venice in the Baroque era, the famous 'ospedali'. These were establishments that took care of and educated children and adolescents.

In the early 18 century almost all the leading Venetian musicians were linked with the musical activities of one of the ospedali. The best-known among them was Antonio Vivaldi, just 25 when he was hired as violin teacher at the Ospedale della Pietà. Among the residents of the Pietà was a girl named Pellegrina, for whom Vivaldi wrote many of his oboe concertos. Accompanied by her colleagues of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, oboist Xenia Löffler not only breathes new life into a selection of concertos by the ‘Red Priest', but also into several by his emulators, among them a contemporary composer, Uri Rom.

The programme begins with a concerto composed by Rom [b. 1969] in 2013 to a commission from the Akademie für Alte Musik and dedicated to Xenia Löffler, one of today’s leading oboists. 'Concerto L’Olimpiade' is a sort of pasticcio based on works by Antonio Vivaldi and Carlo Tessarini.

The first movement is based on the aria ‘Siam navi all’onde algenti’ from the opera' L’Olimpiade'. The second movement reflects the reception of the Italian style by J S Bach. The finale takes as its models a movement from a violin concerto by Vivaldi (RV 172) and a movement from a violin concerto by Tessarini. The solo part and the formal layout of the movement are new.

Since 2001 Xenia Löffler has been a member and principal oboist of the Akademie für Alte Musik, appearing regularly on international concert platforms as a soloist with that orchestra and with Collegium 1704 (Prague), the Batzdorfer Hofkapelle and the orchestra of the Halle Handel Festival.