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Anna Caterina Binda
Chaminade
Anna Caterina Binda
Chaminade
The album
Cécile Chaminade, French composer and pianist, was awarded the Légion d’Honneur, a first for a female composer. Chaminade started her first experiments in composition in very early days and she was admired as a pianist too since she was a child. Even Georges Bizet was very impressed with her talents and the composer Ambroise Thomas said about her: “This is not a woman who composes, but a composer who is a woman”. She toured France several times and in 1892 he made her debut in England, where her work was extremely popular. Sixteen years later she visited the United States, where she was accorded a hearty welcome by the American audience, who loved her music since a long time. At her American debut she played her Concertstück with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Unfortunately, despite all this, Chaminade was relegated to obscurity for the second half of 1900; it is probable that also the critical evaluations of her music through much of the 20th century were based more on gender stereotypes than on the qualities of the work. Still today, unfortunately, her compositions are
little known and the most popular piece remains the Flute Concertino Op. 107. Guitare Op. 32, Ondine Op. 101 and Orientale Op. 22 reflect the main traits of Chaminade’s music: her music is elegant and sophisticated, but also tuneful and often witty. She leads and combines everything with great talent.
The two Album des enfants, Op. 123 and Op. 126, together with the Pastorale enfantine Op. 12, perfectly reflect the choice of many great composers who wanted to leave their mark even in the world of young pianists: the Album for the Young Op. 68 by Robert Schumann written in 1848, for instance, or the Album for the Young Op. 39 by Pyotr Tchaikovsky of 1878, the Music for Children Op. 65 by Sergei Prokofiev of 1935, or the pieces for children written by Dmitri Kabalevsky (the 24 Pieces for Children Op. 39, for example). These are just a few of the numerous masterpieces written by a great composer whose music deserves to be rediscovered and re-evaluated.
The artist
Anna Caterina Binda
Born in Varese (Italy) in 2004, she began to study the piano at age five under the direction of Maestro Paola Del Negro.
She has won awards in more than 30 national and international competitions. Since 2013 till 2016 she attended the Junior Masterclass held by Maestro Roberto Plano at the Accademia Musicale Varesina. Since 2016 she has regularly attended the masterclasses by Maestro Plano: in Campli (Italy) during the International Masterclasses, in Vilnius (Lithuania) for the International Summer Music Festival, in Portogruaro (Venice – Italy) during the International Music Masterclasses of the Foundation S. Cecilia, in Sovico (Italy) at the Association Sovico In Musica and in Rovinj (Croatia) with the support of the Foundation Dino Škrapić.
She performed at the Santuccio Theatre in Varese, for the festival Concerti d’Autunno in Sestri Levante, during the Piano Young Talents Festival in San Donà di Piave, for the Festival “Malpensa Flying Notes – Fazioli Pianoforti”, in many other events organised by Lions Club and Soroptimist International and by the Accademia Musicale Varesina, for the VaresEstense Festival – Young Talents in Music and during the art exhibition “Ruggine e Salici”. In April 2017 she made her debut recital in the “Rassegna Giovani Talenti alla Ribalta” by ENDAS Varese. Afterwards, she also performed in the S. Marta Church in Agliè (Turin), in S. Stino di Livenza (Venice) for the Metropolitan Festival of Portogruaro, in Naples at the Museo del Tessile e dell’Abbigliamento Elena Aldobrandini for the contest Maggio del Pianoforte, at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in Milan during the Lions Clubs International Convention. In February 2019 she was featured in a long interview in the Italian classical music magazine Amadeus. In June 2019 she performed with the Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana at the Teatro Municipale in Piacenza playing Mozart Piano Concerto K595 conducted by Matteo Pais.She is continuing her studies under the guidance of Maestro Paola Del Negro and Maestro Roberto Plano (with whom she is also attending the three-year piano course at the Accademia di Musica in Pinerolo), both professors at the Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington – Indiana (USA).