Teachers

Dr Alberto Sanna™ is a violinist, musicologist and educator from Sardinia, specialising in Italian music from the 17th to the 19th century. His work combines historical and theoretical reflection with practical performance techniques. As a researcher, he studies the historical relationship between compositional thinking and ideals of sound; as a performer, he is devoted to the historically informed performance of specific genres of chamber, church and theatre music. In his publications Alberto sets out to show how, in their creative work, early modern musicians managed the relationship between composition and performance.

Alberto is the creator of the concept of “early music as education” and the director of the Early Music Youth Orchestra™ and of the “Cristóbal Galán” Academy of Early Music in Sassari and Caltanissetta. He is a non-fiction author and an independent recording artist; he regularly performs chamber music and directs instrumental and vocal repertoire from the violin throughout Europe, in the United States, Cuba and Kenya.

Alberto taught musicology and performance at Magdalen College, Jesus College and Lincoln College, University of Oxford, and later became Associate Professor and director of the Cornerstone Arts Festival at Liverpool Hope University. At various times he has also been a freelance violinist in period-instrument orchestras and the leader of a chamber group specialising in Spanish music of the Siglo de Oro.

He graduated from the University of Oxford (DPhil and MSt), the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Boston (MMus) and the Milan Conservatory (BMus). He studied musicology with Laurence Dreyfus and baroque violin with Phoebe Carrai and Manfredo Kraemer. He has won scholarships from the Fondazione Academia Montis Regalis (1995), the University of Cambridge (2004) and the Scatcherd European Scholarship in Oxford (2008); he was a Plumer Visiting Fellow at St Anne’s College, Oxford (2018) and Visiting Professor at the Collegio San Geronimo of the University of Havana (2021–2023).

He graduated with distinction in cello from the Messina Conservatory under Maurizio Simonelli, in viola da gamba with top marks from the Vicenza Conservatory under Paolo Biordi, and in music education.

He has worked with many orchestras and ensembles: Orchestra Barocca di Bologna, Orchestra Barocca Siciliana, Orchestra Barocca di Catania, Consortium Carissimi, Consort Veneto, I Barocchisti, Stagione Armonica, Accademia Strumentale Italiana, Musicali Affetti and I Filarmonici De Labiryntho. With some of them he has toured Germany, France, Poland, Austria, Hungary and Mexico.

In 2000 he founded the Dolci Accenti ensemble, which he leads as artistic director, giving concerts in Italy, Romania, Lithuania, Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic. As a soloist he has recorded “Bitte Ruhe” – sonatas for viola da gamba and basso continuo by Fr. Ruhe – and “Occhi vaghi e leggiadri” for Urania Records. In 2022 he recorded Sammartini’s Sonatas op. 4 for cello and basso continuo, released as a world premiere by Brilliant Classics.

From 1997 to 2004 he was a regular member of the Venice Baroque Orchestra conducted by Andrea Marcon, recording for Arts and Sony and performing at major festivals in Europe, the USA and Japan; he has also taken part in recordings for Deutsche Grammophon Archiv. He is artistic director of the “Note senza tempo” festival and of SYEMF – Sassari Youth Early Music Festival. He currently teaches cello at the Liceo Musicale Pigafetta in Vicenza.

He graduated in classical guitar with top marks from the «V. Bellini» Music Institute in Caltanissetta, and in lute from the Early Music department of the «A. Pedrollo» Conservatory in Vicenza.

He refined his guitar technique in international masterclasses with Alirio Diaz (Venezuela), Vladimir Mikulka (Czechoslovakia) and Angel Torrisi (Argentina). He attended international lute and basso continuo courses with A. Damiani, Pedro Memesdorf, Paolo Cherici, Gilbert Bezzina, Terrell Stone and Rolf Lislevand.

He has given several hundred concerts in Italy and abroad for leading festivals and concert societies. He plays continuo in several ensembles, including Dolci Accenti and I Barocchisti. With Auser Musici he recorded F. Gasperini’s previously unpublished “Mirena e Florio”; with the orchestra La Lyra di Anfione he performed N. Piccinni’s “La Cecchina” at the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari.

He has recorded for Bongiovanni, Sinphonia and Tactus, and broadcast on RSI Radio Due, Radio Romania International and Romanian state television. Since 2019 he has been in charge of organising the “Note senza tempo” festival and SYEMF – Sassari Early Music Festival. He teaches guitar at the Liceo Musicale “D. A. Azuni” in Sassari.

Cipriana Smarandescu specialises in harpsichord and basso continuo. Her training in historically informed performance practice and her wide concert experience place her among the most respected performers of the Renaissance and baroque harpsichord repertoire.

A teacher at the Cristóbal Galán Academy of Early Music, she guides students in a philological approach to historical keyboards, from sixteenth-century Italian and Flemish music to the great masterpieces of the German, French and Italian baroque.

Laura Cecilia Fabris teaches Renaissance and Baroque Singing at the Cristóbal Galán Academy of Early Music. Her specialisation in the early vocal repertoire and her deep knowledge of historically informed performance practice make her a point of reference for students approaching early singing.

Drawing on her experience in opera and chamber productions of Renaissance and baroque repertoire, Laura leads students to rediscover historical vocal techniques, from voice placement to diction, and from prosody to musical rhetoric.