Ensemble

In a bit more than 10 years of activity, Alter Ego succeeded in reaching a leading position among European chamber music groups specialised in performing refined Twentieth century music, with the aim of developing creativity in contemporary art. The ensemble does not cling solely to musical performance, in the traditional meaning of the word, and that allows the group to collaborate with musicians of diversified education in new and always stimulating ways.
Alter Ego performed over 200 concerts in major Italian and European venues (Teatro alla Scala, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Beethovenhalle of Bonn, De IJsbreker of Amsterdam, Musica of Strasbourg, Nybrokaien of Stockholm, Akademie der Kunste of Berlin, Festival Archipel of Geneva, Ilkhom of Tashkent, Numus Festival of Aarhus, Festival delle Nazioni in Città di Castello, Traiettorie in Parma, Settembre Musica in Torino, Ultima in Oslo, Milano Musica …), but its main characteristic is its continuous collaboration with leading contemporary composers. The choice of composers is decided carefully and reserved mainly for projects that favour the interdisciplinary character - when possible - of a concert that exceeds the classical form.
Conscious that contemporary music is received with difficulty by mainstream audiences, Alter Ego is particularly careful when selecting concert programs so that avant-garde music may be appreciated both as a performance and a cultural experience. The result is Portraits, i.e. monographic concerts with the participation of the composer, and the concerts of Contaminazione with artists coming from other artistic disciplines. A very significant contribution is the collaboration of rapper (Frankie HI-NRG), electronics (Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner, Marco Passarani), visual artists (Michelangelo Pistoletto, D-Fuse) and performers (Irvine Arditti, Accroche Note).
Another unique aspect of Alter Ego are its close ties with composers such as Salvatore Sciarrino (of which Alter Ego is the ensemble of preference), Louis Andriessen, Alvin Curran, Philip Glass, Giya Kancheli, David Lang, Frederic Rzewski, Kaija Saariaho, Joji Yuasa…
In 2002 Alter Ego realised some important recording projects with Frederic Rzewski (world premiere of Main Drag in live radio broadcasting for Italian Radio 3 and a monographic CD co-produced by RAI Radio 3 and Stradivarius), Toshio Hosokawa (cycle of conference-concert promoted by the Japan Foundation in collaboration with Scuola Civica di Musica of Milano), Alvin Curran (world premiere of the new opera-concert ordered by Festival delle Nazioni of Città di Castello with the rapper Frankie HI-NRG) and Philip Glass (European premiere for Festival Settembre Musica 2002 in Torino of 600 Lines, unpublished opera of 1968 that Philip Glass granted to Alter Ego with an European exclusive of five years).
The special attention given by Alter Ego both to the historical repertoire of the twentieth century and to works of the most recent trend, produced a long artistic collaboration with Stradivarius, for which Alter Ego is recording a collection of monographic CDs: Philip Glass (prized with the "Editor Choice" of Gramophone and "4 Diapason"), Frederic Rzewski, Nicola Sani, Claude Lenners. The first CD was dedicated to Salvatore Sciarrino (Esplorazione del bianco) with unanimous critical and audience success. Now Alter Ego is recording a 3CD collection all dedicated to Sciarrino works.
Alter Ego has been working with Opera Paese since 1996, one of the most innovative realities in the Roman cultural world.