A triumphal evening, which ended with a trail of controversy. Francesca Perrotta, director of the Olimpia Orchestra, an all-female ensemble, which with her concert opened the year of Pesaro 2024 Italian Capital of Culture, on social media he harshly criticized the hosting of Paolo Bonolis and his “Italian-style comedy jokes”. While Perrotta, whom Bonolis had called several times “madam” and not director, introduces his orchestral musicians, Bonolis says “They are all very…” “Serious” suggests the director, but he continues: “Except for that very sexy young lady there, there after all, all yeah, what does she sound like?” she says, turning to the percussionist and then adding “It hits our souls”. Perrotta specifies “Today she plays the triangle”, giving (involuntarily) an assist to the host who says “Renato Zero too, how wonderful” and walks away humming “The triangle no, I hadn’t considered it”.
The Olimpia Orchestra was born in 2018 from an idea by Francesca Perrotta and Roberta Pandolfi. Perrotta, Pesaro by adoption, was born in Lecce and at the University of Salento she graduated in Foreign Languages and Literatures with a thesis on “The Nibelungic Matter in Wagner’s Opera”. An eclectic pianist and soloist, with solid international experience, she then moved to the Conservatory of Pesaro to study composition and then orchestral conducting, which she also perfected at the École Normale de Musique de Paris and at the European Conducting Academy in Vicenza, where she graduated in 2019. She followed conducting masterclasses with established international conductors such as Julius Kalmar, Lior Shambadal, Sigmund Thorp and Donato Renzetti. With her Orchestra Olimpia you have conducted important soloists such as Haerim Elizabeth Lee, Elena Denisova and Valentina Mastrangelo and started a twinning with the Zohra Orchestra of Kabul, currently re-established in Lisbon after the return of the Taliban. With Orchestra Olimpia. Perrotta “works to promote gender professionalism together with the dissemination of the works of female composers” we read in her bio. In her CV, she also manages other groups, in Veneto, in the Marche, in Emilia Romagna and Friuli Venezia Giulia.
Now the controversy he would have gladly done without. But, he concludes on Facebook “Fortunately, the magnitude of what we were doing and representing was so powerful that the smallness of the curtain was jarring to everyone’s ears. We create and practice culture, we all seek and love beauty.”
2024-01-28 11:00:27
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