ALBERTO MESIRCA
“This is the best Scarlatti I've heard on solo guitar”
K. Keaton, American Record Guide.
“Superb recording from the prodigiously talented Mesirca”
P. Fowles, Classical Guitar Magazine.
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"Superb performance of Alberto Mesirca, an exceptional young guitarist from Italy"
Robert Fripp, dmglive diaries.
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“In Alberto Mesirca, the work has found the most skilled, dedicated, and sensitive interpreter imaginable;
and through the work, the listener can hear a formidable classical guitarist perform"
Marc Ribot.
Winner of the Gramophone Prize 2020 for Best Concept Album with Hugo Ticciati and O/Modernt.
Alberto Mesirca, classical guitarist, graduated from the Specialized Executive Biennium at the of Castelfranco Veneto with 110, honors and special honorable mention, under the guidance of Maestro Volpato.
has completed the Konzert-Examen at the Musikakademie in Kassel, with W. Lendle, with honorable mention. Masterclasses with M. Barrueco, A. Diaz, A. Pierri, J. Vieaux. He was named “Young Artist of the Year” at the Aalborg Festival, Denmark, and Enschede, Holland and “Rising Star” at the Festival Gitarre Wien 2009.
Winner of the “Peredur Preis fuer Junge Kuenstler”, of the prestigious “Chitarra D'oro” at the Conference of Alessandria for best album of the year, the “Young Italian Talents” Award and the “D. Zambon". In addition to the hundreds of concerts as a soloist throughout Europe (Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Rundetaarn of Copenhagen, Helsinki City Hall, Auditorium of Valencia, Teatro Regio of Parma, Palazzina Liberty in Milan, Kunstforum in Vienna, Conservatory in Barcelona, Los Angeles Meng Hall), played with Dimitri Ashkenazy, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Daniel Rowland, Domenico Nordio, Andras Adorjan, Martin Rummel, Marco De Santi, Matthias Schulz, Peter Giger, Winfried Rademacher, Barbara Doll, Acies Quartet, Ardeo and Enesco Quartet, Quautor Enesco, Ex Novo Ensemble.
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He has published works for Edizioni Curci, Chanterelle, Zimmermann, Rai Trade. He has to his credit numerous engravings, with many premieres, including works by Giulio Regondi, Graham Whettam, Carlo Boccadoro, Claudio Ambrosini, Father Donostia.
Angelo Gilardino, Leo Brouwer, Dusan Bogdanovic, David Solomons, Mario Pagotto wrote compositions dedicated to him. The volume (edited by him, with an introduction by Hopkinson Smith and Franco Pavan) containing the unpublished Fantasies of Francesco da Milano found in the Castelfranco Veneto manuscript of 1565 was published and distributed by Editions Orphee.
In January 2009 he was appointed assistant professor of guitar at the Castelfranco Conservatory. He has held Masterclasses at the Royal Conservatory of Amsterdam, Antwerp, Enschede, Los Angeles (GFA).
In collaboration with Marc Ribot he has recorded the complete solo guitar by the Haitian composer Frantz Casséus.
2011 was the year of his debut, as a soloist with orchestra, in chamber formation and as a visiting lecturer at the University of Auckland - New Zealand, at the Guitar Foundation of America 2011 Convention in Columbus (Georgia), at the Stradivari Foundation in Cremona, at the Valencia, Kuhmo and Catania.
Alberto Mesirca was awarded the 2009 Golden Guitar as best young guitarist of the year, and was nominated for "Solo Performance" in the classical section of the 2012 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles; he was also awarded the 2012 “Memorial Tullio Besa” prize.
In December 2011 Alberto was appointed Head of the Music Archive of the National Library of Istanbul.
In 2012 he exhibited in Amsterdam, Barcelona (Italian Cultural Institute), Paris (Italian Cultural Institute), at the Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Festival (Treviso) and at the Nordhorn Guitar Festival (Germany), at the Gitaar Salon in Enkhuizen (Holland), in Catania, at Lons-Le-Saunier with the Ardeo Quartet, at the Festival Classique in The Hague (Holland), at the Uncool Jazz Festival in Poschiavo with Sun Ra Arkestra, Peter and Jonas Giger, at the Kuhmo Festival (where he gave the first national performance of a Gyorgy Kurtàg, fruit of the collaboration with the Maestro), for the Opera Estate Festival, at the Stift Festival of Weerselo (Holland), at the Gran Teatro alla Fenice in Venice and for the Biennale Musica and Tychy (Poland), and in Oslo (Italian Cultural Institute).
In 2013 his album "British Guitar Music" won the "Golden Guitar" as best album of the year; in 2014 he performed in many concerts, with Marc Ribot in New York (Issue Project Room), in Los Angeles at the Guitar Foundation of America (performing the world premiere of "Due Ritratti Italiani" by Angelo Gilardino and the American premiere of "Feuillet d'album" by Giulio Regondi) and at the Italian Institutes of Culture of San Francisco and Stockholm, for the “Semana Tarrega” in Valencia.
In the field of Baroque music he plays regularly with the singer Romina Basso, with the Finnish Baroque Orchestra and with harpsichordist Michael Hell.
Recent projects include an engraving dedicated to the Chaconne together with Hugo Ticciati and O/Modernt, and concerts at Kuhmo Festival (Finland), Stift Festival (Netherlands), Sonoro Festival (Bucharest, Romania), Osterkonzerte Dusseldorf (Germany), Ex Novo Festival in Venice, and Ikebana Festival in Oviedo (Spain). Among the major concerts, a concert for La Verdi's chamber season at the M.A.C. of Milan, and the Concierto de Aranjuez together with the Kassel Symphonie Orchester and with the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, conducted by Marcus Angius.
I made some of his precepts my own ("the strong point of a performer, given an undisputed ability technique, is his choice of repertoire") that still accompany me today.
His example of a curious researcher, to the end, with the lively eyes of a boy, has created in me a sharp image to pursue.
I am extremely grateful to him for all the advice, dedications, spoken and written words spent in my favor in a difficult world (leaning me in my choice not to do performance competitions), the wonderful compositions of which I am the lucky dedicatee, and above all of his human warmth.
I believe that his wonderful personality was expressed beyond the immense music that is managed to produce, precisely in understanding the human soul, its complexity, in accepting even the mistakes that the life of an inexperienced boy could make.
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I owe Gilardino a lot, and I will be eternally grateful, trying to honor him and repay him for his great affection he had for me with the best thing he can do: play his music, and through this open, to the ears of those who have not had the good fortune to know him, the magical casket of his secret world.
Alberto Mesirca
The figure of Angelo Gilardino, for the depth of thought, the artistic caliber, the legacy as composer, teacher, musicologist and performer of many new works of great depth, will be missed by the world of music, and surely with great difficulty can be equaled by a future musician (although he was a great inspiration for entire generations of guitarists) able to do what Gilardino has done in the course of his life.
He spent his entire existence in favor of music, maintaining a rigor and purity totally unconditional towards his choices, without compromising or running out of quality to establish itself or emerge in the world of music.
His extreme sensitivity and intelligence have allowed him not to impose his ego and his personality, despite his caliber could allow it.
I was lucky enough to know him as a fourteen-year-old boy, and he never let his big one weigh presence, never made me feel inferior, wrong, or in the way. He spent energy and time in any situation, welcoming me into his home for long afternoons in which the playing was only the pretext to be able to discuss literature, painting, cinema.
At each meeting I went out motivated, with a renewed research interest, and heartened by the doubts and disappointments that any young person approaching a career as a musician may have.
