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The L’Orchestra Barocca Siciliana (= OBS) was founded in 1986 on the initiative of the flautist Piero Cartosio, with the aim of spreading the historically informed practice of ancient music in the regional context. During its long activity, the OBS has promoted numerous concert events (30 editions of Palermo Musica Antica, 21 editions of the Festival di Musica Antica di Polizzi Generosa, Madonie Musica Antica) in which several reference musicians for the sector have performed. Since 1995 the OBS has also carried out an important training activity by establishing the Corsi di Musica Antica di Polizzi Generosa. In 2020 the OBS moved to Syracuse, maintaining the objectives and intentions with which it was originally conceived unchanged. The association is currently supported by young Sicilian artists and musicologists specialized in historically informed practice, chaired by Luca Ambrosio, harpsichordist and musicologist. In a difficult and demanding year such as the initial one, the OBS was able to maintain all the commitments made with its brand new audience, establishing itself permanently in one of the most interesting (and forgotten) Baroque places of the Aretusea city: the convent of the Frati Cappuccini. In the halls and cloisters of the convent, concert after concert, the audience of subscribers (over 80 now) and supporters who have become passionate about the different aspects of Baroque music (and not only) has grown, appreciating them thanks to the heartfelt and engaging guides to the listen live, even in concert-events in costume. In recent years the OBS, in its various formations, has performed for several important seasons and festivals, in Italy and abroad; at the end of 2020 the OBS Nuovo Barocco Italiano concert was video-recorded in HD and broadcast throughout the world through the brand new "Italiana" portal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an emblem of the Italian way of interpreting the glorious Italian musical tradition of the past. |
