Claude Debussy: La Cathédrale Transfigurée

Ivano Leva was born in Naples, Italy, in 1975. He studied piano with Alexandra Brucher at the Conservatory of Campobasso and composition with Gaetano Panariello at the Conservatory of Naples. Interested in improvisation and jazz from an early age, he also studied jazz piano with Francesco D’Errico, Francesco Nastro and Enrico Pieranunzi.

An award-winning composer, he has received commissions from prominent institutions, and his works have been premiered in Australia at the Geelong Performing Arts Centre and Melbourne Recital Centre, in France at the Auditorium Maurice Ravel and Académie Diplomatique in Paris, and in Italy at the Goethe-Institut and Auditorium Scarlatti in Naples. As a pianist and improviser, he has appeared at festivals and concert series including Katerinburg Jazz, Festival dei Due Mondi, Camerata Musicale Barese, Festival Oboe Paris, Nick La Rocca Festival, Pietà de’ Turchini and Piano City Napoli. He has also performed on television and radio programmes for the Italian national broadcaster RAI.

His longstanding exploration of the relationship between classical music and real-time composition has helped shape a distinctive personal style. His album of original compositions L’ala del silenzio explores the balance between the formal architecture of the piano quintet and elements of free improvisation. He also works as a music tutor and lecturer; his teaching has included classical and jazz piano, harmony and theory in the pre-academic courses of the Conservatory of Salerno.

Born in Italy, Marika Lombardi studied at the National School of Music in Milan, where she won first prizes for oboe and chamber music. Her career began in 1988 with a successful solo tour. She continued her studies in Paris, receiving further first prizes at the Conservatoire National de Région de Saint-Maur, the École Nationale de Musique de Montreuil and the Ville de Paris. She refined her technique with Pierre Pierlot, Hansjörg Schellenberger, Maurice Bourgue, Ingo Goritzki, Lothar Koch and Sergiu Celibidache.

A prizewinner in international oboe and chamber music competitions, she received a distinction at the International Chamber Music Competition in Paris and an award from the Cziffra Foundation. She performs regularly in chamber music and orchestral concerts in France and elsewhere in Europe, and gives masterclasses. Her musical collaborators have included Bruno Canino, Frank Braley, Sylvie Gazeau, Henri Demarquette and Nathalie Dang. Since 2000, her artistic activities have included directing the international music academy and festival Risonanze Armoniche in Lasino, Italy, and the OBOE festival in Paris. She has appeared at numerous European festivals and performed in the United States.

Since 1992, her teaching in Paris and the surrounding region has included the Conservatoire Municipal du Centre and the Conservatoire of the ninth arrondissement, the national music schools in Pantin and Chantilly, the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional d’Aubervilliers and the Schola Cantorum. She received her national teaching diploma in 1999 and was invited to give a masterclass at New York University in 2012. Her album SOLO was selected for broadcasts on France Musique and Italy’s Rai Radio 3 programme Suite. She plays a Howarth-London oboe.

Claude Debussy: (b St Germain-en-Laye, 22 Aug 1862; d Paris, 25 March 1918). French composer. One of the most important musicians of his time, his harmonic innovations had a profound influence on generations of composers. He made a decisive move away from Wagnerism in his only complete opera Pelléas et Mélisande, and in his works for piano and for orchestra he created new genres and revealed a range of timbre and colour which indicated a highly original musical aesthetic.