"La Suave Melodia"

**Saturday, May 30** continues the schedule of “**OrgaNova**,” the **international organ festival of Santa Maria del Passo**, under the artistic direction of **Margherita Sciddurlo**. The appointment is **at 8 PM**, at the **Church of Sant’Antonio in Mola di Bari** with the concert titled «**The Sweet Melody**», featuring the duo composed of **Giovanna Tricarico** (organ) and **Michele Tricarico** (recorders).

The evening’s program spans the European Baroque repertoire from the 17th and 18th centuries: the concert takes its title from the famous piece by Andrea Falconieri «The Sweet Melody and its Currents», included in the program; it is a musical journey that puts two seemingly distant instruments into dialogue, united by the same sound nature. As the performers explain, the recorder and organ share the same principle of sound production, based on the passage of air through pipes. “The breath – whether produced by the breath of a flutist or by the bellows of an organ – will give voice to an era, the Baroque, which continues to astonish even today,” say the musicians, highlighting the deep connection between breath and sound material.

Opening the program will be the Sonata in G minor by Giovanni Paolo Cima, among the earliest testimonies of instrumental writing from early 17th century Italy, still suspended between the Renaissance vocal language and the new expressive freedoms of the emerging Baroque.

This will be followed by the Sonata op. 5 no. 2 by Johann Christian Bach, a cosmopolitan author and a bridge figure between Baroque and Classicism, with an elegant and luminous writing built on the balance between melodic impulse and formal lightness.

The symbolic heart of the evening will be «The Sweet Melody and its Currents» by Andrea Falconieri, an emblematic piece of 17th-century Naples, where the taste for dance and melodic invention intertwine in lively and theatrical music. This will be paired with the Sonatas K85 and K82 by Domenico Scarlatti, presented for solo organ: miniature pieces of extraordinary rhythmic and harmonic fantasy, in which keyboard virtuosity coexists with references to Iberian and Mediterranean folk music.

The program will then delve into the rich tradition of Italian organ music with the two Canzoni by Girolamo Frescobaldi, taken from “Canzoni to be played on all sorts of instruments”: pages constructed on continuous contrasts of affections, imitations, and changes of character, still considered one of the absolute peaks of instrumental music from the 17th century. Of particular interest is also the presence of the Sonatas by Sister Maria Eletta Pierandrei, a rare female figure of 18th-century Italy, testament to a conventual musical production of great quality and expressive sensitivity.

Completing the program will be the famous «Dance of the Grand Duke» by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, based on variations of a festive and dancing character, and the Sonata VIII in D minor by Benedetto Marcello, in which the dialogue between recorder and continuo alternates contemplative moments, theatrical impulses, and sudden virtuosic accelerations. A repertoire that will also highlight the timbral possibilities of the organ hosted in the church in Mola, in a continuous play of sound colors between human breath and that of the instrument.

Michele Tricarico, born in Ruvo di Puglia, trained at the “Niccolò Piccinni” Conservatory in Bari, specializing in ancient and Baroque repertoire and collaborating with various ensembles specializing in early music. Giovanna Tricarico, organist, harpsichordist, and pianist, studied in Bari, Milan, and Pescara, performing in Italy and abroad and is the artistic director of the organ festival “La Girolmeta,” dedicated to enhancing the historical organs of Puglia.

Admission is free, until seats are filled, for both concerts. OrgaNova is promoted and organized by the cultural association “Arte & Musica,” with the support of the Ministry of Culture, the Puglia Region, and the Municipality of Mola di Bari, in collaboration with the Pasquale Battista Foundation and with support from the main sponsor “Levigas Luce e Gas,” among other local sponsors. For more information: 340.376.15.50.
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