La Pifarescha is internationally recognized as one of today’s leading protagonists of early wind music. The ensemble was originally conceived as an alta cappella ensemble, a configuration of wind and percussion instruments that was immensely popular throughout medieval and renaissance Europe.
The alta cappella enjoyed widespread popularity for its unique ability to function both on its own and in supporting roles with other instrumental ensembles, vocal ensembles, and dance companies. La Pifarescha explores the entire spectrum of wind music, tracing the evolution from the alta cappella to the noble consort of cornetts and sackbuts, which appeared on the scene during the renaissance and flourished in the early baroque. The group often expands its ranks to include keyboards, strings, and voices, and reaches beyond the panorama of Western Art Music towards popular and ethnic traditions.
The ensemble incorporates a fascinating and diverse selection of instruments. Shawms, bombards, sackbuts, cornetts, trumpets, bagpipes, dulcians, flutes, fiddles, lutes, viols, dulcimer, percussion, and many others, join together to alternate the sounds of alta cappella with the bassa cappella, offering a highly variable sonority unique to the ensemble.
Regularly present in prestigious International Festivals, La Pifarescha has recorded for CPO, Classic Voice, Dynamic, Arts, Concerto Classics, Outhere, Pan Classic, Glossa.
In 2020 the ensemble was awarded first prize in the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) Early Music category, for the CD “Willaert e la Scuola Fiamminga a San Marco", a collaboration with the Cappella Marciana and conductor Marco Gemmani. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.