Academia del Piacere
Biographie Academia del Piacere
Academia del Piacere
The uniqueness of its innovative projects, the technical ability of its musicians and the strong personality of its artistic director have made of Accademia del Piacere a vanguard group in Spanish early music and one of the leading ensembles of this kind in Europe. Accademia is especially appreciated for the group’s fascinating and direct communication to its audience, and its conception of historical music as being alive and full of emotions, an idea conveyed by the group’s musicians to their spectator from the heart.
Accademia del Piacere has revealed its various facets in fundamental repertoires of historical music, such as the Italian Seicento (in Le Lacrime di Eros, 2009 Prelude Classical Music Award, and Amori di Marte, centered on Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, 2011 “Disco Excepcional Scherzo” and Tipp CD in Toccata Magazine, Germany), as well as French chamber music in the court of Louis XIV in Les violes du Ciel et de l’Enfer (nominated for the 2011 International Classical Music Awards).
In 2011, Accademia del Piacere moved the world of historical music, presenting Las Idas y las Vueltas, an incursion into the world of flamenco and it’s relationship with baroque music, in collaboration with flamenco vocalist Arcángel (Giraldillo prize for Best Music at the 2012 Seville Flamenco Biennale).
Equally brave is Accademia del Piacere’s following recorded project, which revives the passionate world of improvisation in Spain in the 1600s—Rediscovering Spain (2013), Choc de Classica in France and Tipp Toccata in Germany—in which once again Alqhai and Accademia del Piacere risk and offer new glosas to today’s listeners.
National and European-level recognition has developed Accademia del Piacere’s presence on the most prestigious classical music stages in Europe and world-wide. Among those visited recently are the Berlin Konzerthaus, Colonia Philhamonie, Auditorio Nacional de Madrid, Mexico’s International Cervantino Festival, Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Konzerthaus of Vienna and the Early Music Festival in Bruges, as well as numerous festivals in the Netherlands, Japan, USA, Germany, Belgium, Swizerland, Colombia, Spain… Accademia del Piacere’s concerts are regularly transmitted live by the European Broadcasting Union from it’s associated broadcasters, such as RNE (Spanish National Radio), German NDR, Radio della Svizzera italiana or Czech Radio, and has furthermore been presented on various television broadcasts.
Fahmi Alqhai
is considered one of the most brilliant and prestigious young players of the Viola da Gamba in the world today, as well as one of the most recognised interpreters of early music, for his personal and communicative approach to historical repertories.
Born in Seville, Spain, in 1976 to a Syrian father and Palestinian mother, he spends the first eleven years of his life in Syria, where he starts to study music at a very young age. Later he studies—self-taught—in Spain until he enters the Manuel Castillo Conservatoire in Seville in 1994 to study the Viola da Gamba with Ventura Rico. He furthers his studies in the prestigious Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basel, Switzerland) with Paolo Pandolfo and in the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana (Lugano, Switzerland) with Vittorio Ghielmi. Over the course of his musical studies, Fahmi Alqhai also obtains his degree in Dentistry from the University of Seville.
In 1998, he begins his career as a soloist specializing in the German repertoire for viola da gamba. He receives great reception from the public and critics for his versions of the Bach Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord, which he records with harpsichordist Alberto Martinez Molina for the Spanish label Arsis in 2004.
In 2002 he founds Accademia del Piacere with soprano Mariví Blasco, ensemble of which he is the director. He is also founder, together with his brother Rami Alqhai, of the record label ALQHAI & ALQHAI, with which he produced and recorded four CDs –two dedicated to the Italian Seicento (Le Lacrime di Eros, winner of the 2009 Prelude Classical Music prize, and Amori di Marte) and a third to Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray’s music for viola da gamba (nominated for the International Classical Music Awards 2011). In 2012 Fahmi Alqhai wins the Giraldillo prize awarded to Best Music at the 2012 Sevilla Flamenco Biennal, for the music of his fourth CD Las idas y las vueltas, together with flamenco vocalist Arcángel.
In 2014 he records for Glossa his first CD for solo viol, A piacere, whose innovative conception of the instrument is warmly welcome in Spain, Germany and throughout Europe. For the British magazine Gramophone it’s an “extraordinary” CD in which “he brings the instrument into a new realm of joyful potential”, and “a merry tribute to all [the viola da gamba] could have been, and still can be”.
From a young age he is invited to work with the most internationally-renowned early music ensembles. He is a regular member of numerous recognised groups such as Hesperion XXI (Jordi Savall) and Il Suonar Parlante (Vittorio Ghielmi). He is also a founding member of More Hispano (dir. Vicente Parrilla). With these ensembles Fahmi Alqhai regularly offers concerts in Europe, Japan, the United States and South America’s best concert halls. He has conducted his ensemble, Accademia del Piacere, in places such as Wiener Konzerthaus (Austria), Berliner Konzerthaus, Philharmonie of Cologne (Germany), Gulbenkian Foundation of Lisbon (Portugal), Parco della Musica of Rome (Italy), Auditorio Nacional of Madrid (Spain), Festival Internacional Cervantino of Guanajuato (Mexico) and many others.
As a soloist, Fahmi Alqhai has performed with important orchestras such as the National Orchestra of Spain, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne (Michael Corboz), Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla, and Al Ayre Español, among others. He has also made his entrance in the fields of contemporary music, as well as jazz, with artists such as Uri Caine.
Fahmi Alqhai has also made numerous recordings for record labels such as Alia Vox, Glossa, Winter&Winter, Tactus, Arsis and Enchiriadis, as well as for television and radio in Europe, Asia and America.
Since 2009, he is artistic director of the Early Music Festival of Seville (FeMAS), Spain’s oldest and most important early music festival.
