Giovanni RenzoApril 28, 2016, 19:00 - 20:30 UT

Live with composer Giovanni Renzo

The concert will be introduced by the astrophysicist Dr. Gianluca Masi

Watch it online on WebTV

The new edition of the Cosmic Concert, an online musical performance for GAM 2016, will be performed by the Italian pianist and composer Giovanni Renzo. Cosmic Concert 2016 is a collection of compositions and improvisations conceived as an exploration of the universe.  Here's the GAM 2015 trailer.

BREAKING NEWS! This edition of the Cosmic Concert will be live from the Theatre Vittorio Emanuele in Messina (Italy) and Giovanni Renzo will perform a composition of his own entitled “La distanza della Luna” (The Distance from the Moon”). On the stage, will be Renzo and the Orchestra del Teatro Vittorio Emanuele. The astronomical video is produced by Gary Varney,  with images by Gary Varney, Fernando Rodriguez, Chuck Manges from the Amateur Astronomy Selenology Project, and Albert Barr, Charles Lillo, Jose Bellas, from the South Florida Amateur Astronomers Association.

Cosmic Concert 2016 is a musical journey through space and time that starts on the night of the 7th of January 1610, when Galileo Galilei pointed his telescope at the sky and very soon after that discovered four satellites that gravitate around Jupiter, upsetting forever the geocentric conception of the Aristotelian universe. After a close encounter with nebulae, pulsars and black holes, the journey leads us to the furthest parts of the Universe.

Astronomical videos will be mixed with live streaming of the performance, creating a natural flow of music and spectacular images.

Renzo has a long-term fascination about the relationship between music and astronomy (such as star maps changing into scores or compositions based on the beat of the pulsar). For the last three years he has been invited by Astronomers Without Borders to perform his works live during Global Astronomy Month. This online concert is one of the most successful events of the general program.

Giovanni Renzo was born in Messina, Italy, in 1962. He graduated from the Conservatorio “Corelli” in his hometown in 1986, continuing his musical education in Rome. He made his debut in 1979 as a jazz pianist. He regularly plays at concerts and festivals, alternating his concerts with teaching and composition. Renzo has composed music for films, theater, ballet, opera, multimedial performances. His first recording, “Eclisse” (1989), is a collection of piano solo compositions. Then he produced “La distanza della Luna” for piano and orchestra (1996 and 2007), “Il mare” (2001), live recording featuring Paolo Fresu and “Suono e ritmo quintet", "Atlas Coelestis", book plus DVD (2008), “Infanzia” (2008) and "Racconti per pianoforte" (2010), again piano solo. The musicbook for iPad "Racconti per pianoforte" is available for free on the iBookstore. Recently Renzo was quoted by the Spanish Blog "Los mejores pianistas del Mundo" as one of the world's greater pianist, mainly for his original work about music and astronomy.

Watch the 2015 Cosmic Concert:

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