The journalist Gianluca Bibiani journalist for the specialized magazine “Strumenti e Musica”, interviewed the artistic director of the International Accordion Prize of Castelfidardo, Renzo Ruggieri. Here are the previews of the next edition of 2019.
Bibiani: What are the news of the regulation for 2019?
Ruggieri: As mentioned, I made changes to the regulation last year and in this edition I will only prepare small optimizations. 2018 has returned great interest to the “World” section, which has counted many members for only two soloist categories; for this reason I added the categories student12 & student15, making them uniform with the sections: Classica and Virtuoso. In practice, all the very young, of any musical genre, will have the opportunity to participate in the prestigious PIF of Castelfidardo. We are also witnessing a renewed interest in the application of electronics to the accordion. The greatest accordion player of all time was Gervasio Marcosignori and I dedicated an electronic accordion category to him. Compared to the past, I have included all the systems possible today: VIRTUAL accordions (without voices), MIDI (acoustic with applied electronics) and ELECTRICAL (with digital multi-effects). With regards to the Classical accordion, listening to the precious advice of some great masters, I have optimized the MASTER category and I expanded the CLASSIC COMPOSITION category which also includes the participation of the Symphony Orchestra.I know we will have less subscribers than last year due to the difficulty of writing (in the last edition there were so many … 19 compositions for Classical Accordion and String Orchestra), but this area, after all, is still little explored and the PIF has the “Duty” to promote it, bearing in mind that the song will be studied and played primarily by the best concert artists of the future … and who will also win a substantial scholarship.
Bibiani: Tell us about the annual theme: “Once Upon A Time … the accordion and the world of fairy tales”.
Ruggieri: The annual theme shifts attention towards a goal: “The new generations”. I am a father and I noticed that the very young have, for the accordion, less prejudices than those who once had my peers. They don’t know her, but look at her with curiosity. The “theme”, therefore, wants to involve and focus the interest on the accordion, using “the imagination”.Bringing the accordion to primary schools is the next step and for this we will organize an INTERNATIONAL DRAWING COMPETITION on the theme of fairy tales that will include at least one image of the accordion. A first selection will reduce the drawings to 25/50, which will then be publicly voted on our official pages. The winner will receive an accordion built in Castelfidardo. Even the composers are called to be inspired by the theme, as well as to the performers, they will be asked to dedicate something to them.
