The Piccola Accademia di Montisi is a music academy for

harpsichord A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...

students and recent graduates located in

Montisi Montisi is an Italian village in the municipality of Montalcino, Province of Siena, Tuscany. It sits on a hill on the boundary between the Val d'Orcia and the Crete Senesi. History Montisi has ancient roots: in fact it arose in the Middle Ag ...

, a hill town in the

Province of Siena The province of Siena ( it, provincia di Siena, link=no, ) is a province in Tuscany, Italy. Its capital is the city of Siena. Geography The province is divided into seven historical areas: * Alta Val d'Elsa * Chianti senese * The urban area o ...

, in Southern Tuscany. It provides masterclasses with students playing on its collection of restored historic instruments and modern copies. It also holds an annual summer festival with concerts of harpsichord music and other works from the

Baroque period The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

which feature the instrument. The academy was founded in 2006 by harpsichord-maker and collector Bruce Kennedy who had been making harpsichords based on 18th-century models since the 1980s. He remains the academy's executive director. The academy is based in the 13th-century Castello di Montisi. Its summer concerts are held in the and other churches in the town. The inaugural summer festival, held from 18 to 21 July 2007, featured concerts by

Gustav Leonhardt Gustav Maria Leonhardt (30 May 1928 – 16 January 2012) was a Dutch keyboardist, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor. He was a leading figure in the historically informed performance movement to perform music on period instruments. Leo ...

Mahan Esfahani Mahan Esfahani ( fa, ماهان اصفهانی) (born 1984 in Tehran) is an Iranian-American harpsichordist. Education Esfahani received his first guidance on the piano from his father before exploring an interest in the harpsichord as a teenag ...

, and Skip Sempé and his Baroque ensemble ''Cappriccio Stravagante''. The final event was a performance (the first in modern times) of Domenico Scarlattti's 1711 opera ''

Tolomeo e Alessandro ''Tolomeo e Alessandro, ovvero la corona disprezzata'' is an Italian-language opera by Domenico Scarlatti to a libretto by Carlo Sigismondo Capece which premiered in Rome on 19 January 1711 at the Palazzo Zuccari, with scenery by Filippo Juvarra. I ...

'' directed by Alan Curtis. Curtis served as the Piccola Accademia di Montisi's artistic advisor from its inception until his death in 2015. He was succeeded by Skip Sempé.

References

External links

* {{authority control Music schools in Italy Early music festivals