Early music ensemble La Tempesta was founded in 1998 by Jakub Burzyński, its conductor and artistic director, to perform Renaissance and Baroque music using period instruments. The ensemble's name is a play on words; it is named after the ensemble's director Jakub Burzynski (‘BURZA’ means ‘storm’ in Polish). La Tempesta specializes in the stylistic representation of works from the 16th to 18th century; often presents reconstructions of musical events from the past or programmes combining music, literature and dance.
Depending on the repertoire performed, La Tempesta consists of male singers appropriate for performing the Renaissance polyphony or expands to full orchestra and choir for larger oratorio or opera pieces of Baroque and Classicism (2-16 singers & 2-18 instrumentalists). For instance, in 2002, the ensemble performed as a female orchestra and choir during the reconstruction of the service for Ospedale della Pieta to the music of Antonio Vivaldi. La Tempesta has performed all over Poland, in Witold Lutosławski Concert Hall, National Philharmonic, at the Royal Castle in Warsaw and Cracow, on the stage of the Silesian Philharmonic, to name just a few. During the celebration of the Bach Year (2000), La Tempesta, together with the soloists of the International Summer Academy of Early Music in Wilanów, took part in a concert broadcast by EBU. In 2003, the ensemble, invited by Alliance Francaise, presented French music and literature of the 16th century on concerts all over the country. The same year, the group was awarded a prestigious Emilia and Julian Kulscy?s distinction during the 13th Festival of Early Music in Warsaw.
In 2002 La Tempesta recorded a CD for Canon with various pieces from the late Baroque and two years later, another CD for a Swedish company BIS "Vespers of Sorrow" with sacred works of Antonio Vivaldi. |