Gilberto Scordari - Francesco Antonio Baseo: Il primo libro dei Madrigali a cinque voci (Venezia, 1582) (2021)

Founded in 2018 and conducted by Gilberto Scordari, the SCHOLA CANTORUM BARENSIS is a vocal-instrumental ensemble specialized in the musical repertoire of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, performed on period instruments and respecting the most recent discoveries of historically informed performance practice. It aims, since its beginnings, at becoming a meeting point for the best Pugliese Early Music performers and for professionals coming from other parts of the Italian Peninsula and of the European Continent.
The group debuted in Bari (Puglia) in December 2018, inaugurating the BARION FESTIVAL with a programme focusing on German Advent music of the seventeenth and eighteenth century (Bach, Bruhns, Schütz, Praetorius). Due to their particular attention for the revival and reappraisal of the unpublished repertoire of the Pugliese school, the ensemble chose to dedicate this first discographic project to FRANCESCO ANTONIO BASEO, the Chapel Master of the Lecce Cathedral between 1573 and 1582, and also the true “founder” of the polyphonic school in the Terra d’Otranto.
Gilberto Scordari (b. Lecce, 1977) studied at the Conservatory “San Pietro a Majella” in Naples. In 2006 he graduated in Organ under the guidance of M° A. Robilotta with honours and special praise, and, in 2007, he graduated (Laurea di Primo Livello) in Theory and Techniques of musical composition, under the guidance of M° E. Renna, with honours. He continued his studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (in Basel, Switzerland), completing them with a Master’s in Early Music under the guidance of Wolfgang Zerer, and obtaining the Award assigned by the Basler Organistenverband to the best graduate. In 2011 he obtained a Bachelor’s in Theology at the Pontificia Facoltà Teologica dell’Italia Meridionale of Naples with a dissertation about the relationship between Bach’s music and the Gospel of John in the Toccata and Fugue BWV 538.
He was awarded an ex-aequo First Prize at the National Organ Competition of Viterbo in 2005 (Category B) and he performed as a soloist throughout the national territory and abroad (France, Switzerland, Germany, The Netherlands, Bolivia, Mexico and USA). He has been the continuo player of the Ensemble Gilles Binchois (Dominique Vellard) and of other Early Music ensembles (Zenit, Prothimia, Hortensia Virtuosa, De Finibus Terrae). Since 2018 he conducts the Schola Cantorum Barensis, an ensemble founded by him and dedicated to the rediscovery of the unpublished Pugliese repertoire between 1500 and 1700.
Some of his compositions have been performed within the framework of important international seasons; his Toccata in Fuga for the organ was awarded the Third Prize ex-aequo at the “Manoni 2006” competition of Senigallia (when the Jury was presided by Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini). Currently he is writing – together with French composer Dominique Vellard – an opera for choir, soloists and small ensemble inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince.
He has been the titular organist at the Basilica of the Ss. XII Apostoli in Rome (2011-2) and he founded there the Frescobaldi Festival. In 2016 he published, together with Anna Robilotta, the first of three volumes dedicated to the analysis and performance of the Fiori Musicali by the great Ferrarese composer, who is buried in that very church in Rome. Since 2019 he gives a series of theoretical/practical courses focusing on historical counterpoint (ninth to sixteenth century) and on the evolution of imitative instrumental forms from the Ricercare to the Fugue (sixteenth to eighteenth century) at the Scuola di Musica Silence in Maglie (Lecce). He is the founder and artistic director of the Festival N&B MARETERRA in Puglia. He currently lives in Naples where is the Cathedral organist.