Carmelo Abate

Bruno Maderna always attached great importance to insight and imagination, even during the period in which he followed the most rigorous serial procedures. Maderna’s preference for concreteness in sound images, his practical approach to composition problems, and his receptiveness to language diversity explain the extraordinary ascendancy he had over the Italian composers who visited Darmstadt in the Fifties and Sixties, including Nono, Berio, Donatoni, and Clementi.

Henry François Joseph Vieuxtemps was aged 4 when he started the violin with his father, a violin-maker and amateur violinist. He gave his first public performance at the age of 6 and his talent attracted the attention of Charles Auguste de Bériot, who brought him to Paris, where in 1829 he made his début.

English composer James Cook composed three major symphonies in his twenties and after a brief spell studying composition at Oxford in 1994 turned to the writing of sacred vocal and choral music, much of which has been recorded for Divine Art/Diversions. In 2000 he began to concentrate on organ music and competed a cycle of nine organ symphonies. Looking to expand his horizons further he turned to opera in 2010; his first, “Dorothy”, was premiered in London in 2015. Since then he has produced several more including a cycle of four on Biblical themes.