Cremona academy reopens with new chief
mainThe Stauffer Academy in Cremona, specialising in higher music education for strings, will reopen next year in the newly restored Palazzo Stradiotti.
Its Director General will be Paolo Petrocelli, 36, former IMG manager and performing arts consultant.
He says: ‘The objective is clear and well-focused: we want to strengthen and expand all activities of the Academy to make it more and more one of the most advanced international music centers for strings, a point of reference for artistic and cultural excellence. in Italy, in Europe, and in the world. With an ambitious multi-year development plan, we will create an innovative global platform dedicated to offering the finest higher music education programs to the most talented musicians, projecting into the future the great tradition of the Italian strings school and the extraordinary cultural heritage of the city of Cremona, the world lutherie capital.’
Surely this deserves at least one comment.
“The most important undertaking of the Fondazione, has been the setting up of the Accademia Walter Stauffer in 1985, for the training of string players in the performance of chamber music and the solo repertoire.
“Since then, yearly specialization courses (free of charge) for violin, viola, cello and double-bass are held in Cremona by the following teachers of high international prestige: Salvatore Accardo – for the violin, Bruno Giuranna – for the viola, Antonio Meneses – for the cello, Franco Petracchi – for the double-bass.
“From 2011, there is also a yearly specialization course for string quartets, held by the Quartetto di Cremona, made up of the following teachers: Cristiano Gualco – violin, Paolo Andreoli – violin, Simone Gramaglia – viola, Giovanni Scaglione – cello.”
Walter Stauffer was not a musician (his fortune was derived from the family business of cheese-making, which he successfully developed); but his love of Cremona and of its luthier tradition led him to set up a musicological institute there. I hope its new DG can succeed in these much harder economic times.