As is tradition, this year the Donizetti Theatre Foundation also presents the Christmas Concert, featuring the choir I Piccoli Musici directed by Mario Mora. The concert, scheduled for Saturday, December 21 at the Teatro Sociale (3:30 PM), will once again be a precious opportunity to savor the Christmas atmosphere through compositions that evoke its festive and spiritual climate. This year, a particularly suggestive and evocative title has been chosen: The Sound of the Voice. The absolute protagonist will indeed be the voice of the choir, with the inclusion of some soloists: Alberto Braghini on piano, Francesca Tirale on harp, Silvia Freti on violin, and Sebastiano Suardi on bagpipes. The concert will ideally be divided into two parts: the first will feature Folk Songs from various nations, pieces from musicals by Leonard Bernstein and Richard Rodgers, and opera songs, also commemorating the centenary of Giacomo Puccini’s death. From Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen, staged at the Donizetti Theatre in the 1995 season in which the choir participated, the “Choeur des Gamins” will be presented in a scenic form, with “Avec la garde montante”, a piece that the “Coro dei Monelli” sings in the first act. The second part will then give ample space to the most beautiful Christmas melodies, but there will also be new premieres, skillfully arranged for the choir by Mauro Zuccante, such as “The little drummer boy”, a famous American Christmas song written in 1941, and “Let it snow”, a true Christmas classic of the 20th century. Different styles but presented with a single characteristic: expressiveness and sound, which have always distinguished the choir I Piccoli Musici. Cultural Ambassador of Europe for the Federation of Choirs of the Union, the choir I Piccoli Musici, based in Casazza and directed since its foundation by Mario Mora, was established in 1986, an expression of the music school of the same name. In its intense artistic activity, the choir has been invited to perform concerts at important international choral festivals and has received numerous awards. It has participated in concerts broadcast by RAI, Mediaset, Swiss TV and Radio: “Christmas in the Vatican” in the presence of John Paul II, “Christmas Notes”, “Christmas in the Milan Cathedral”, “Christmas Time”. From 2007 to 2023, it performed the Christmas Concert with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, broadcast in Eurovision from the Basilica of Assisi. It has recorded works by Mendelssohn and Britten and a collection of International Songs and Melodies titled Around the world, the Christmas Vespers by Willaert, and a collection of Christmas songs for Stradivarius in Milan (judged by the French magazine “Repertoire” as the best Christmas album of the year 2000). It has also recorded a collection of songs for children and young people titled Giro, Giro Canto 3.
