Leila Schayegh, Musica Fiorita, Daniela Dolci
Biography Leila Schayegh, Musica Fiorita, Daniela Dolci
Leila Schayegh
belongs to the most visible violinists in the current baroque music scene.
Her vivacious interpretation has placed her at the center of old music. She performes all over Europe as a soloist or in chamber music groups and is regularly invited by modern orchestras for concerts and masterclasses.
Leila Schayegh has developed a close collaboration with Jörg Halubek, cembalist, organist and director. Their 2016 recording of Bach’s six obligato sonatas was awarded numerous prizes (Diapason de l’année, Grammophone Award, Schallenplattpreis). Her collaboration with director and cembalist Vaclav Luks led to the recordings of Benda’s violin sonatas (Diapason d’Or 2011) and Mysliveček’s violin concertos in 2018. She’s been playing since 2008 with Gli Angéli Genève (directed by Stephan MacLeod), in particular for the almost complete series of Bach’s cantatas. She’s recently expended her repertoire towards the classical and romantic period, in particular with a recording of Brahms’s violin sonatas in 2018 with Jan Schultsz for the label Glossa.
Since 2010 she is professor of baroque violin at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, as successor of Chiara Banchini. She passes to a new generation of musician her experience as well as approach of music: an expressive interpretation based on thorough knowledge of the historical and musical context of the period where the works were composed.
Born in Winterthur (Switzerland), she finished in 1999 her studies in modern violin with Raphaël Oleg at the Basel Music Academy with Summa cum laude. After two years as a member of the Philharmonia Zurich, she joined the class of Biara Banchini at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where she obtained in 2005 a diploma Summa cum laude. She was awarded in 2003 the first prizes of the Alte Musiktreff in Berlin, the Förderpreiswettbewerb der Konzertgesellschaft in München as well as Premio Bonporti in Rovereto, Italy.
Musica Fiorita
For over 25 years, the ensemble MUSICA FIORITA, conducted by Daniela Dolci, has been specializing in the performance of late Renaissance and Baroque music. The ensemble strives to promote the current standards of historically informed performance practice and is committed to being true to both the original scores and the liveliness of their performance.
The varied use of instruments like the cornett, the baroque violin, the traverse and the viola da gamba, as well as the presence of a substantial continuo group (lute, theorbo, baroque guitar, psalterium, harp, harpsichord and organ) all aim to the flourishing of the finer nuances of the music of the 17th and 18th centuries ("Fiore" = Flower). MUSICA FIORITA, with its instrumental and vocal virtuosity and its interpretation rich in improvising, comes near to a way of performing that could be described as "refreshingly authentic". Long forgotten scores come to life again when they are embedded in their socio-historical context. Furthermore, MUSICA FIORITA succeeds in reproducing the subtleties of deep emotions and affects as they are conceived in the Baroque era. Thus, the ensemble is more up-to-date than ever.
MUSICA FIORITA, with its balanced mix of vocal and instrumental music and the contrast between sacred and secular music, achieves in its concert programs the concept of variety embodied by the early and late Baroque. The performance of selected chamber music is staged, as it was once, as a social event. Church music lives, on the other hand, on simplicity, poetry and deepness.
The ensemble’s participants come from very different parts of the world, speaking many different languages, and yet—this being MUSICA FIORITA’s specialty—they are unified by the language of music through their studies at the SCHOLA CANTORUM BASILIENSIS – the "Institute of Musical Research and Education in Early Music" of Basel, Switzerland, where they not only did shape their artistic competences, but also their wish to research, investigate, discover and broaden their horizons and self-development.
Both with regards to finding artistic consensus (in all its diversity) and with regards to the repertoire, the instrumentation and the historical musical performance, the ensemble MUSICA FIORITA aims to build a bridge between early music and its nowadays' modern context.
Daniela Dolci
The harpsichordist and leader of the ensemble Musica Fiorita, Daniela Dolci (native of Sicily), studied early music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, specializing on historical keyboard instruments. Subsequently she went to Amsterdam for further training with Gustav Leonhardt. Her main focus – inspired by the work with Jesper B. Christensen—is the historical basso continuDDo practice, based on 17th and 18th century sources.
DDDolci’s diversified practice includes concerts, performance of operas, studio productions for TV and radio as well as studio recordings together with her ensemble and with others (René Jacobs - Bachtage Berlin, H.M. Linde - Moscow Chamber Music Festival; with her ensemble Musica Fiorita in Tallinn and Riga, St. Petersburg, Oude Muzijk Utrecht; International Handel Festival Göttingen, Herne’s Early Music Days, Innsbruck Festival Weeks of Early Music; Tours in Japan, Poland, Italy, Germany, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay; dance projects in collaboration with baroque dance groups; musicological symposiums et al.) Recordings with the ensembles Dulzainas and Concerto di Viole and also with the cellist Ivan Monighetti are also available.
Daniela Dolci gives great importance to the educational aspect as well. She gives lectures on female composers and on historically informed performance and teaches master classes on basso continuo and ensembles practice – in Leipzig, Riga, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Puerto Madryn und Mendoza (Argentina), Santa Cruz (Bolivia), Universities in Potenza, Matera and Bologna). Meanwhile, she also conducts modern formations who like to deepen their knowledge of the Early Music period.
In 2006 she was awarded the honor of „peace ambassador through music” by the honorary citizens of Chiquitos, Bolivia. In 2008 she was awarded the honor of Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana by the Italian Republic in appreciation of her efforts to promote Italian culture abroad.
In 2010 she was awarded the Hans Roth Prize in Bolivia.
In 2019 she was awarded the yoeurope award of the European Cultural Foundation PRO EUROPA for her outstanding achievements in the field of early music.
