Franco Alfano is remembered today for his completion of Turandot after Puccini’s death. His catalogue of works, including operas, orchestral and chamber music, reveals him to be a sophisticated and original composer. Alfano possessed an innate melodic facility combined with a talent for unexpected timbres, as heard in the luxuriously orchestrated Suite romantica which, in the composer’s own words, aims to convey ‘the feelings of two lovers travelling through Italy’. From the neo-Classical Divertimento to the noirish postwar Nenia, and from the lightness of touch of Amour… Amour… to the impressionistic and iridescent Una danza, each work reveals a different aspect of this multifaceted composer.

Accordion and bandoneon player Davide Vendramin is widely in demand as a performer, appearing at important international festivals, as soloist with numerous acclaimed orchestras.

Pianist Vittorio Rabagliati has won First Prize in numerous national piano competitions and was a finalist at the ‘Rendano’ Prize in Rome and at the ‘A. Casagrande’ International Piano Competition in Terni and has dedicated himself particularly to modern and contemporary repertoire, with first performances and recordings of composers such as Berio, Castiglioni, Donatoni, Nono, Manzoni, Maderna and Sciarrino.

Conductor Giuseppe Grazioli has specialised in recording less-often-heard music from his native Italy. He has a long track record as a conductor of both orchestral music and opera. He has conducted many rare Italian operas by Gino Marinuzzi, Licinio Refice, Franco Faccio as well as the world premiere of Marco Tutino’s opera Vita with the Orchestra della Scala. In 2019, he became the principal conductor and casting manager of the Opéra de Saint-Étienne in France and conducts extensively in that country.