Born in 1944, conductor-composer Adriano lives in Zürich. As a musician he is mostly self-taught. In the late 1970s he established himself as a specialist on Ottorino Respighi and he has conducted many CDs of obscure or neglected symphonic repertoire. He has also initiated and recorded a series of fifteen CDs mainly of European film-music composers, and has created and directed a series of classical music videos. All of Adriano’s over forty recording projects have found wide recognition and his commitment is known to be strong and uncompromising. In his opinion music history should be revised to show that it is not just the story of the so-called great composers, and that it should not be neatly classified into traditions and categories. Much more good music has been written than certain musicologists and critics would care to admit.
Adriano has composed songs, orchestral, chamber and incidental pieces. His most recent works are a Concertino for celesta and strings, a Concertino for piano, strings and percussion, an Obscure Saraband for organ, tubular bells, timpani and strings, Cryptic Sketches for brass
quintet and Thoughts and Associations for clarinet and string quartet, of which the first five have been recorded. His instrumental adaptations include songs by Modest Mussorgsky (four cycles), Ottorino Respighi (four cycles), Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Othmar Schoeck, Jacques Ibert and Johann Strauss II. He has also adapted Debussy’s L’après-midi d’un faune and Ravel’s Tzigane for chamber group, and large selections of Grieg’s Peer Gynt for wind quintet. Adriano works for various record companies. For Marco Polo and Naxos he has recorded a total of thirty CDs.
For more information, please visit www.adrianoweb.cjb.net.
