This is the third time he has offered a concert to the inhabitants of the town where his family comes from.
He returned to perform in Pont on “pianist of the dark” Fabrizio Sandretto. This is the third time that he offers a concert to the inhabitants of the town where his family comes from and he has always done so in places of great beauty and prestige: the first time at the foot of the Torre Tellaria, the second in the parish church of San Costanzo; this time in the parish church of Santa Maria di Doblazio.
The event took place on the afternoon of Saturday 31 August at the initiative of the association “IJ Canteir” and obtained the patronage of the Municipality. The association was represented by the president Marina Balagna and by numerous members in costume. Also thanks to the clear day and the mild climate, many were the pianist’s admirers who went up there to listen to him and, as was to be expected, they were not disappointed: the rich program was carried out with the usual skill of execution and with that extra sensitivity that comes from having to do without the sense of sight.
Maestro Sandretto, born in Turin in 1980, has in fact been blind since birth but, as written in the Program “having never looked at the world through sight, he does not miss it”. Instead, he was able to make the most of the other four senses. The mayor emphasized this Paul Coppo: “If on one hand Mother Nature takes, on the other she gives. I think that Fabrizio took from the left hand but gave from the right hand because in fact he had a lot. In his curriculum vitae I was struck by the phrase .”
The pianist Fabrizio Sandretto
On the subject of sayings, a Japanese maxim also reported in the brochure states: “When you are born, you come across a suitcase with all your faculties inside. If you lack something, make do with what you have!”.
It is no coincidence that Fabrizio Sandretto know it: Japanese is a language he knows well. In addition to his diploma in Piano at the Conservatory of Cuneo and his doctorate in Musicology, he obtained a Linguistics High School diploma and then began studying Japanese at Bocconi in Milan. Alongside his concert activity, he also works as a translator.
Very well known in the music world, he has performed more than 190 concerts: also participated in Eurovision.
Last April he was the protagonist of a long report on the Rai Tre programme “O anche no” which tackles the issues of disability from the point of view of those who experience it, without pity and indeed with a very pleasant and effective self-deprecating tone.
In the Santa Maria concert, the musician introduced himself, one by one, the pieces he was about to perform. He proposed a program that ranged from Baroque to contemporary, starting with Bach and Handel and ending with the Armenian Khacaturjan, much loved by the pianist and quite demanding to perform.
Bach’s very famous “Music of the Angels” was proposed, and Handel’s “Passacaglia”, a musical form of Spanish origin whose name means the road: music of clear popular origin, elevated to a cultured genre in the Baroque period. After Mozart’s “Alla Turchia” sonata, the greatest space was given to Chopin, who concluded the first part of the concert, and to Beethoven, who opened the second, followed by Brahms, Sain-Saens and the Spaniards Enrique Granados and Isaac Albeniz.
The organizing association was very satisfied and appointed Fabrizio Sandretto as an Honorary Member of Ij Canteir.
To accompany and punctuate the concert, a literary interlude was inserted during the interval by Gian Pietro Bertoli, former high school teacher, mayor of Pont and regional councilor, who presented his book “La Via dei Morti” dedicated to local stories and legends. He accompanied them with an interesting historical overview of the site of Santa Maria starting from the Presitoria. The task of reading some of her poems was instead carried out by Cristina Coppo, a long-time teacher at the Elementary School of Pont and an excellent reciting voice on different occasions.
see also the entire recording of Fabrizio Sandretto’s concert… 72 minutes!