Fiorenza Calogero


Fiorenza Calogero is an Italian world music singer and actress from Naples, Italy. She has made a significant contribution to the research and popularity of the traditional songs of Southern Italy.

Biography

She worked with Roberto De Simone, who engaged her in significant roles in such performances as La Gatta Cenerentola, staged in the gardens of the Palais Royal, Paris; at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London; Festival Grec, Barcelona ; and the major Italian theaters, Lo Vommaro a duello, a production of the Teatro di San Carlo for the "Napoli Teatro Festival" Italia. The concert performance of Li Turchi Viaggiano by De Simone, toured Argentina in 2001 as well as Uruguay.
Fiorenza's vocal repertoire includes neapolitan songs, various jazz forms, and many Mediterranean influences.
In 2001 she won the Prix Saint Vincent with the classic song Indifferentemente.
In 2007 she presented her Neapolitan songbook at "Columbus Day".
In 2008, the journalist-musicologist Pietro Gargano devoted to her two pages in his Encyclopedia of classic Neapolitan song. Her interpretations of the neapolitan classics are preserved in the sound archives of the Rai radio-station and in 2009 she received the "Naples in the World Award" in Ravello.
In 2007 Fiorenza made the first album Fioreincanto, a collection of classic songs in the Neapolitan language on the IMAIE label. Her second album, Fiorenza, was released in 2009 by the Dutch CNR Music label. This disc presents, in alternation, classic and unpublished traditional melodies with incursions into pop-opera, in duo with the tenor Vittorio Grigolo.
Subsequently, she toured with Alessandro Safina the main Dutch theaters. She performed in "Winter Classics" at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam, "The Night of the Voice" at the Theater Schouwburg Almere, "Beautiful Italy" at Chasse Theater Breda in collaboration with the Dutch baritone.
Concurrently she collaborated with l'Accademia Mandolinistica Napoletana, with which she gave concerts in Rome, Warsaw, Crakow, Paris, London, Berlin and Luxembourg; as well as with the Lost Sound Orchestra, which widened her knowledge of early instruments ; she performed with Bruno Garofalo at the Teatro Poliorama Barcelona in the Napoli nella tempesta concert, featuring Eduardo De Filippo's adaptation of the sonnets by William Shakespeare.
Several other significant points in her career should be mentioned as well:
Sentieri Mediterranei, the festival of classical and world music in Summonte from 2003 to 2015; Premio Carosone, Teatro Politeama – Napoli ; Rassegna OrtoVolante, Real Orto Botanico – Napoli; Intricanti Festival ; Festival Anime Verso ; Adriatico Mediterraneo Festival ; Ventotene Classic Festival ; Musica Antica in Valcomino.
In 2009, she contributed with her performance of the Canto delle lavandaie del Vomero to the film Passione directed by John Turturro, presented out of competition at the Venice Film Festival.
In 2011, the label Edel published the third album Sotto il Vestito... Napoli, accompanied by jazz pianist Lorenzo Hengeller.
Among her most important stage collaborations that should be mentioned here are those with Cristina Branco, Amal Murkus, Urna, and Pino De Vittorio. She participated, with the singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/composer Enzo Avitabile, in the biopic Enzo Avitabile Music Life, directed by the Oscar winner Jonathan Demme, in the scene Anola Tranola with the Malian musician Toumani Diabate. The film was presented out of competition at the Venice Film Festival in 2013.
She was the soloist at the concert for the "La Repubblica delle idee" initiative in Naples in 2014.
Enzo Avitabile is also the author of the songs from her newest album, entitled Nun tardare sole. The song "Tre Fronne e tre ciure", one of the most intense of the disc, was presented at Epiphany Concert at the Teatro Mediterraneo in Naples in January 2015, and broadcast on RAI 1.
In October 2016 she participates at Heinrich Schütz Musikfest in Dresden with the Ensemble L'Arpeggiata directed by Christina Pluhar.
Artistic director and creator of important music festivals, to remember some: Migrazioni Sonore, Festival of musical Cultures of the World ; Napoli Dea Madre – di voce in Donna, a women's Festival made for the Forum of Cultures of Naples in 2014 with the singers Cristina Branco and Amal Murkus; Irpinia Terra di Mezzo.
In 2017 he was guest of the broadcast in worldwide on Rai Italia "Community – l'altra Italia" presented by Benedetta Rinaldi where Fiorenza told about his career and given musical moments accompanied by the inseparable "chitarra battente" of Marcello Vitale.

Family

Her husband is Marcello Vitale, a noted chitarra battente virtuoso.

Artistic collaborations

Ernst Daniël Smid, Vittorio Grigolo, Alessandro Safina, Antonio Sinagra, Rino Zurzolo, Roberto Pregadio, Bruno Biriaco, Adriano Pennino, Peppe Vessicchio, Enzo Gragnianiello, Eugenio Bennato, Lino Cannavacciuolo, Enzo Avitabile, Cristina Branco, Toumani Diabate, Amal Murkus, Urna, Pino De Vittorio.

Discography

As soloist