Raffaele Bellafronte
*8 January 1961
Works by Raffaele Bellafronte
Biography
Raffaele Bellafronte (b. 1961, Italy) studied piano with Lucia Passaglia, composition and analysis with Firmino Sifonia, Giampaolo Chiti and Fulvio Delli Pizzi. After many years of research and experimentation in the recording studios, Bellafronte's work has progressed from a model whereby ideas are expressed, achieved, proposed in their final definitive mode via audio supports to one wherein the composer re-traces and re-elaborates the compositional strategies of previous centuries into new and exciting music. Much of his work has been published with Universal Edition Vienna Universal Edition, Bèrben, Bongiovanni, Curci, Carisch, RAI Com, Les Productions d'Oz (Canada) DaVinci Edition (Japan). Much of his work continues to cross national borders; is indeed performed at many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls and theaters: Oasi alla Mente was commissioned by and premiered at New York’s Carnegie Hall in October 1996; other major venues include Vienna’s Konzerthaus with the world premiere of Il Labirinto dell’Anima, (or Labyrinth of the Soul), for piccolo and orchestra, in 2003; Afrika, for trumpet and piano, premiered in Denver (Colorado) at the World Trumpet Convention in 2004; San Diego and the World Flute Convention, 2005 saw the premiere of The Crazy Acrobat for piccolo and piano; Frammenti d’Ombra e Luci, (Fragments of Shadow and Light), for solo clarinet, was first performed at Tokyo’s World Clarinet Convention in 2005; at Flautissimo in Rome’s Parco della Musica, Arakathalama premiered for clarinet, guitar, bandoneon and doublebass, and Bellafronte’s Ave Maria for soprano and orchestra was performed before the Italian Government at its traditional Christmas concert, 2005; the world premiere of Zeit, a new concerto for bassoon and orchestra, was performed in Vienna, April 22, 2009, during the official season of the Musikverein. He has recorded for Summit Records, Brilliant, Stradivarius, Tactus, Delos International, Rai trade, Bongiovanni, record companies. Besides composing, Raffaele has been directing various venues. From 1990 to 1996 Bellafronte was artistic director of the City of Vasto’s Masterclass Series. Artistic Director of the Seminari Musicali Internazionali in Vasto, Italy, since 1999, he is also artistic director of Teatro Rossetti, Vasto’s municipal concert venue, and the Civic Music School, since 2007. He has taught in several Italian Conservatories and today he teaches at the Conservatory of Campobasso. On April 7, 2014 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan it was performed Midnight plays for clarinet, cello and piano. January 30, 2015 he returned at Carnegie Hall in New York with Tarantella for guitar performed in American premiere. On November 6, 2016 he returned at the Musikverein in Vienna with the world premiere of Suite No. 2 for bassoon, guitar and string orchestra. His works and publications are available through most major music catalogues worldwide.
In 2017 he received the prestigious Golden Guitar Award for the composition from the 22th
International Guitar Convention in Alessandria (Italy), on the occasion of the 50th edition of the
International Guitar Competition Michele Pittaluga.
On April 9, 2018 he returned at Teatro alla Scala in Milan with the world premiere of In Search of Dance for string quartet.
About the music
Raffaele Bellafronte’s music is free, mobile, rich in distant echoes and yet tenaciously reflecting today’s reality. It has a strong communicative character without slavishly tracing traditions that can no longer be exhumed. It shows an enviable tenacity in blending singing qualities, tonal propensities, and paroxysmal ostinatos that never expire in minimalism. It lives off an expressive density that is also made of harmonic harshness. It exhibits a stubborn lack of craftiness in building a sound world full of points of support, while at the same being never fully predictable. Bellafronte’s music is certainly also calculated. Nonetheless, it has the felicitous happenstance not to present itself only as such to the listener: it moves, pulsates; it lives beyond and above possible exegeses; it narrates something that ultimately makes one want to listen to it time and again. Raffaele Bellafronte’s music always communicates. But it is not “easy” music that strives to please. it does not do somersaults, it does not wink. Sometimes it actually does, ironically, however always towards itself – never towards the listener. Bellafronte is not a composer in search of the new for its own sake: he is not afraid of using tradition and transcend it through a language that is always direct, original, and communicative. His personality is such that, in the context of a series of nuances and scents, in some cases evident, in others more subterranean, he manages to create a sound-imagery that never excludes the listener’s perception, never sets itself entirely in rethinking the idea of certain historical and historicizable forms.
Modal and tonal harmony are constantly challenged, disrupted through dissonances that never obfuscate the underlying clarity of the musical narrative. In this sense, I can proclaim unwaveringly that Raffaele Bellafronte’s music, specifically in these works, has reached the apex of classicism without becoming neoclassical. His neoclassicism, should we prefer to define it that way, is therefore not linguistic or stylistic, but philosophical in nature.
