Il Giardino Armonico is a pioneering Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 early music

Early music

Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...

 ensemble founded in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 in 1985 by Luca Pianca

Luca Pianca

Luca Pianca is a Swiss musician-lutenist whose specialty is archlute. In 1985 he co - founded Il Giardino Armonico, a pioneering Italian early-music ensemble based in Milan...

 and Giovanni Antonini

Giovanni Antonini

Giovanni Antonini is an Italian conductor and soloist on the recorder and baroque transverse flute. He studied in his native Milan, and attended the Civica Scuola di Musica in that city and the Centre de Musique Ancienne in Geneva...

, primarily to play 17th- and 18th-century music on period instruments.

Il Giardino Armonico performs with soloists such as the mezzosoprano Cecilia Bartoli

Cecilia Bartoli

Cecilia Bartoli is an Italian coloratura mezzo-soprano opera singer and recitalist. She is best-known for her interpretation of the music of Mozart and Rossini, as well as for her performances of lesser-known Baroque and classical music...

, duo pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque

Katia and Marielle Labèque

The French sisters Labèque, Katia and Marielle , form an internationally known piano duo. They have performed and recorded most of the repertoire for two pianos, spanning the instrumental, chamber, and concerto genres encompassing musical periods from Baroque through contemporary.Katia and...

, cellist Christophe Coin, and soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 Danielle de Niese

Danielle de Niese

Danielle de Niese is a lyric soprano. After success as a young child in singing competitions in Australia, she moved to the USA where she developed an operatic career...

. Its recordings have met with honors including the Gramophone

Gramophone Award

The Gramophone Awards are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry, often referred to as the Oscars for classical music. The winners are selected annually by critics for the Gramophone magazine and various members of the industry, including...

 and Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

s. Il Giardino Armonico performs both in concerts and in opera stage productions of works such as by Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...

, Handel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

, Pergolesi

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was an Italian composer, violinist and organist.-Biography:Born at Iesi, Pergolesi studied music there under a local musician, Francesco Santini, before going to Naples in 1725, where he studied under Gaetano Greco and Francesco Feo among others...

 and Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...

.

External links

• Il Giardino Armonico Official site with biography of group
• Il Giardino Armonico Unofficial fansite