Member
Contact Information
info@giovanniacciai.ithttp://www.giovanniacciai.it
Location
Guardamiglio, Lodi
Early Music Skills & Interests
Clavichord, Conductor, Fortepiano, Harpsichord, Organ, Voice - BaritoneEarly Music Affiliations
Conductor, Editor, Educator, Musicologist, Opera Director, Publisher
Biography
Unanimously recognized as one of the greatest interpreters of the Renaissance and Baroque vocal repertoire, Giovanni Acciai is graduated in Organ, Composition and Choir conducting and specialized in Paleography and musical philology at the University of Pavia (Italy).
He is an emeritus professor of Musical Palaeography in the Musicology Course at the «Giuseppe Verdi» Conservatory in Milan.
Formerly director of the vocal music magazine La Cartellina and Offerta musicale (The Musical Offer), he has numerous revisions of ancient music, musicological essays, translations to his credit.
Director of the Corale Universitaria di Torino (University Choral of Turin), from 1975 to 1983; of the Coro del Teatro comunale di Bologna (Choir of the Theater of Bologna), from 1981 to 1982 and of the Coro da camera della RAI di Roma (Chamber Choir of the Italian Radio Broadcasting and Television Corporation of Rome), from 1989 and until the dissolution of the complex, which took place in 1994, he is currently the artistic and musical director of the Solisti del madrigale (Madrigal Soloists) and of the Collegium vocale et instrumentale Nova Ars Cantandi, trained by professional singers and instrumentalists, at the helm of whom he carries out an intense concert and record activity.
For artistic and musical merits acquired internationally he was elected in 1991, an honorary member of the American choral directors associations (ACDA) and in 2020 mhe was named «honorary member» of the Associazione internazionale stiudi di canto gregoriano (International Association of Gregorian Chant Studies) in Rome. Again in 2020, the A.N.L.A.I. – Associazione nazionale liuteria artistica italiana (National Association of Italian Artistic Violin Making of Cremona awarded him the A.N.L.A.I. 2020 for a life dedicated to music and art».
He is artistic director of the international choral singing competitions of Grado (Udine), Lucca, Assisi (Perugia) and Quartiano (Lodi).
He is regularly invited as president or jury member of the most important national and international singing and choral composition competitions; to hold reports in musicological conferences and internships in choir direction at Italian and foreign choral associations.
On behalf of the Nuova Era record company, he oversaw the recording of Claudio Monteverdi’s (1567-1643) Quarto and Sesto Libro de' Madrigali, at five voices, in the performance of the Solisti del madrigale.
At the helm of the Collegium vocale et instrumentale Nova Ars Cantandi he has instead made, for the Concerto of Milan, the recording of Vespri per la festa d'Ognissanti (Vespers for the feast of All Saints), with three voices, violins and continuo, by Giovanni Giacomo Arrigoni (1597-1675). For Sarx Records of Milan, Pasquale Cafaro’s (1708-1787), Stabat Mater, with four voices, strins and continuo; Francesco Durante’s (1684-1755), Responsorî della Settimana santa (Responsories of the Holy Week), with three voices and continuo and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s (1525-1594), Motecta festorum totiius anni (Motets for the feasts of the whole year), with four voices. For the Stradivarius of Milan, the complete edition of Lodovico Grossi da Viadana’s (1564-1627), Lamentazioni e Responsorî della Settimana santa (Lamentations and Responsories of the Holy Week), with four voices; Europa concordia musicae, a CD containing polyphonic music of the XV and XVI centuries, commissioned by the Prime Minister and by Italian Radio Broadcasting and Television Corporation of Rome (RAI) on the occasion of the Italian Presidency of the European Union (1996); Giovanni Contino’s (1513-1574), Primo libro delle Messe a quattro voci (First book of the Masses with four voices) and the Concerti a 1, 2, 3. e 8 voci (Concerts with 1, 2, 3 and 8 voices) by Giacomo Moro (?-after 1610). For Unda Maris of Palermo he recorded Pietro Vinci’s (1525-1584), Missarum cum quinque, sex et octo vocibus, liber primus (1575). For the Tactus of Bologna the Vespro a cappella della Beata Vergine (Vesper of the Blessed Virgin), opus VIII (1678), with four voices, by Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704) and the Armonici entusiasmui di Davide (Harmonic enthusiasms of David), opus IX (1690), with four voices, two violins and continuo by Giovanni Battista Bassani (1650-1716). This record received the nomination for the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA 2017), in the “Early Music” category. For Antiqua-Classic Voice magazine, he produced two CDs dedicated, respectively to La musica dei mercanti. The evening concerts of the seventeenth century “and The music of the Jubilee. A seventeenth-century Vespers for Divine Mercy; for Archiv-Deutsche Grammophon, the Arpa Davidica (Davidic Harp). Psalms and Mass concerted, opus XVI (1640) by Tarquinio Merula (1595-1665), the Contrafacta by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), «CD of the month».for the magazines Classic Voice and Amadeus), Confitebor and the Responsoria by Leonardo Leo, with four voices and continuo, (CD of the month for the mazine Musica and «Franco Abbiati Award 2019» of the National Association of Music Critics). For Naxos, the Compiete con le Litanie e Antifone della Beata Vergine (Compleine with the Litanies and Antiphons of the Blessed Virgin), for five voices and continuo, opus VII (1662) and Harmonia d'affetti devoti (Harmony of devoted affections), opus III (1655), with 2, 3 and 4 voices, by Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690); Salmi e Magnificat (Psalms and Magnificat), with four voices an continuo by Francesco Durante (1684-1755). For Da Vinci Classic, Novelli fiori ecclesiastici (New ecclesiastical flowers), with four voices and continuo by Michel Angelo Grancini (1605-1669). This record received the nomination for the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA 2025), in the “Early Music” category.
In December 2004 he was appointed active member and official representative for Italy of the «Choir Olympic Council», under the aegis of UNESCO.
Since November 2015 he has been part of the Réseau Européen de Musique Ancienne (REMA.), the European reference network for early music and, since May 2022, he has been director of the «Nova Ars Cantandi», of the Fédération des ensembles vocaux et instrumentaux spécialisés (FEVIS), based in Paris.
In 2021, together with Ivana Valotti, he founded the early music festival «Europa Concordia Musicae» in Milan and in 2022, in Clusone (Bergamo), the international festival «Musica Mirabilis», dedicated to the rediscovery and re-evaluation of vocal and instrumental by Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690).
In July 2023, in Gangneung (South Korea), on the occasion of the 12° World Choir Games, for the artistic and professional merits acquired, the Interkultur Foundation, in the person of its president Günter Titsch, nominated him «honorary member» of the World Choir Council.
In November of the same year, the Regional Association of Choirs of Abruzzo (A.R.C.A.) awarded him the Abruzzo corale lifetime achievement award 2023, «for his valuable collaboration in the various editions of the Incontri Polifonici di Pescara, an important European choral festival organised in the 1980s by the Municipality of Pescara and the Pescara choral associations».
In May 2024, the Italian Ministry of Culture appointed Giovanni Acciai as a member of the “National Committee for the celebrations of the fifth centenary of the birth of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina”.
