Toni Albano, a charming guitarist, turns up in a dusty theatre. He is writing a book about Italian pop music and wants to consult the archives. There he surprises the charming concierge of the house. She remembers the wonderful live radio broadcasts masterfully hosted in this theatre by a certain Bolomini, who has tragically passed away. But his ghost haunts the rooms - and suddenly reappears to fulfil his last broadcast from the grave: Italian pop from the Renaissance to today ... Now, right now! With no guest artists, the three characters are forced to interpret all the show's titles themselves, interviewing themselves and searching for the sincerity of Italian pop amidst the glitter, between breaking news and news from the game...
The guitar in a whole range of variations, from romantic guitar to mandolin to the distortions of electric guitars, lends itself particularly well to the variety of arrangements required for this project. La Pop italienne is about deepening this work of playing and adapting by varying both the vocal styles and the instrumentation. So it is not surprising that a folk singer performs a lamento by Monteverdi with a rough intonation and is accompanied by a baroque guitar. To add variety to the orchestration, all the musicians also play an instrument other than their own. But one thing should be clear: We really believe in the beauty of the songs we will present.
Clara Meloni
Clara Meloni, Italian-Swiss soprano, born in 1981, graduated in vocal performance from the Conservatoire de Musique de Neuchâtel and holds a Master in Music from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and a Master in Specialised Performance Opera from the Hochschule der Künste Bern. Her vocal flexibility and curiosity for the music of different periods and styles enable her to interpret the great classical works from oratorio to chamber music and more contemporary creations to musical and pop.
She has been admired on such prestigious stages as the Lausanne Opera, the Lyon i Opera and the Nancy Opera.
She has performed in concerts at the Lucerne Festival, the Barbican Center in London, the Festival Les Jardins Musicaux in Cernier, the Salle de Musique in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the Victoria Hall in Geneva and the Berlin Festival, among others.
Francesco Biamonte
Francesco Biamonte is a stage and radio performer who practices and explores various forms of musical theatre. He conceives and performs shows between prose, shadow theatre and music with the Italians of Controluce in Switzerland, Italy and Germany. He is involved in street-operetta with the Farceurs Lyriques, from the Festival de la Cité in Lausanne to the Soirs d'Été in Caen. Performer and reciter, he is the Moderator of the mythical Helikopter-Streichquartett by Karlheinz Stockhausen with the Arditti Quartet. He has collaborated on several occasions with Cod.Act, alias André and Michel Décosterd (Grand Prix Suisse de Musique 2019), with performances in New York, Le Locle, Wroclaw, Lucerne, Malta, Toulouse, Tokyo and Rio. He is one of the four singers in Sottovoce, the latest creation of the dance company Linga (2020), soon to be performed in Zagreb, Olten and Leverkusen. He conceived and wrote Les Clochards célestes du Rebetiko with Benjamin Knobil, a necromantic cabaret based on the songs of Greek exiles in the 1920s, which he performed alongside Boulouris, Dominique Tille and Maria de la Paz, among others, in several French-speaking venues in 2021.
In more conventional repertoires, Francesco has performed on various opera stages (Lausanne, Rennes, Besançon, Vichy), under the direction of Leonardo Garcia Alarcón in Ambronay, Geneva and Tannay, and at the Villa Giusti during the season of the Accademia Filarmonica of Verona. He has also performed some of the great roles of the lyrical repertoire with the Avant-Scène Opéra de Neuchâtel. Francesco Biamonte is also a friend of the radio microphone, in particular as producer and host of the exploratory programme Quoi (RTS-Espace2).
Antonio Albanese
After his studies at the Conser- vatoire de Lausanne, Antonio Albanese joined the Master's programme at the Manhattan School of Music in New York, to study under David Starobin.
Within various chamber music ensembles (Compagnie CH.AU, degré21 with Laurent Estoppey, Ensemble baBel), he has participated in the creation of numerous contemporary works. He regularly performs in Switzerland and abroad, in particular, more recently, in the following venues Mamco - Geneva, La Grange de Dorigny - Lausanne, Kilbi Festival - Düdingen, L'Alhambra - Geneva, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, England, Le Bourg - Lausanne, Venice Biennale - Italy, Festival Nueva Frequencias - Rio, Instituto Moreira Salles - São Paulo, Seeds - Brooklyn, Gare du Nord - Basel, Vox Populi - Philadelphia, Centre Culturel Suisse - Paris, Festival Images - Vevey, Harpa concert Hall - Reykjavik, Musée des Beaux-arts - Lausanne, Halle Saint-Pierre - Paris, Radio Suisse romande, Festival de la Cité - Lausanne, Théâtre de l'Oriental - Vevey, Théâtre du Châtelard - Geneva, Cami Hall - New York, UCNC North Carolina - USA, Palacio Mateus - Portugal, Théâtre 2. 21 - Lausanne.
He is also a novelist, published by Age d'Homme and BSN Press.
