Biography

It was founded in 2017 as a “Altotiberino” choir association, reviving an old Musical Association that is being closed following the premature loss of its ancient founder, the late Luigi Camaiti.

Former Choir of the Collegiate Church within the parish of Pieve Santo Stefano with about 20 elements, with the aim of animating the liturgy on Sundays and on the feasts of Christmas and Easter.

The group was and still is composed of non-professional people who, with enthusiasm and commitment, want to bring, with music, a testimony of faith and harmony.

In 2007 the choir felt the need to grow musically as a more structured choir starting a minimal polyphonic choral activity.

Initially the activity was limited to religious functions, expanding over time its range of action by starting to participate in many gatherings of religious choirs in the Valtiberino and non-Valtiberino territory (Sansepolcro, Anghiari, Badia Tedalda, Città di Castello, Arezzo).

The first director of the choir that together with Luca Gradi began the activity is Annamaria Leonardi, daughter of Roberto Leonardi, famous director of the Ermanno Brazzini Philharmonic of Pieve Santo Stefano.

It was she who gave the first rudiments to the many immature participants, musically speaking, and devoid of much technical knowledge.

Over the years the activity has expanded, also participating in reviews and events of music and songs of the popular and peasant tradition, also organizing a gathering of popular choral music during the famous Sagra del Prugnolo of Pieve Santo Stefano.

Around 2016, due to personal commitments, Annamaria Leonardi leaves the direction of the choir that is taken and still maintained by Marshal Andrea Pisani, who has in his training a wide range of technical and musical knowledge resulting from studies in his youth, before entering the Carabinieri Corps of which he is still part as Station Commander.

Since that year the choir has further expanded its experiences, participating in some productions of operas and operettas in the program of PIEVE CLASSICA, the musical season of Pieve Santo Stefano born in 2014 from an idea of baritone Andrea Sari and Luca Gradi.

Since 2018 he collaborates with the Municipality of Pieve Santo Stefano in the realization of the musical season PIEVE CLASSICA where he participated as a choir in the operas La Traviata and Don Giovanni di G. Verdi, Tosca and Gianni Schicchi, by G. Puccini and the operetta La Vedova Allegra by Lehar. These works are repeated several times in Pieve, Sansepolcro and Arezzo even outside of PIEVE CLASSICA

It also organizes choral festivals where choirs from neighboring regions are invited, and from the year 2019 it hosts a choir participating in the international polyphonic competition “Guido d’Arezzo”. The association hosted the MUNCHEN choir in the summer of 2019.

Even now Andrea Pisani, together with Luca Gradi maintain the artistic musical direction of the choir.

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