Author: Vincenzo Di Betta
The activities of concert performer, teacher, researcher and creator of new projects both from a musical and cultural point of view, make Vincenzo Di Betta one of the main protagonists of the current revaluation of Renaissance and Baroque music. His work, recognized by critics at the Italian and European level, offers an interpretation characterized by a lively creativity and enthusiasm, using the most up-to-date philological criteria, rediscovering the unpublished Renaissance and Baroque repertoire, in particular the Sicilian and Roman school. He began his studies at the age of ten, playing the organ in the Cathedral of Agrigento and practicing choral activity with the Choir Monteverdi of Porto Empedocle (Agrigento). From the beginning he turned his interests to the repertoire of Renaissance and Baroque music. After completing his musical studies in organ and singing in Zurich and Palermo, in 1997 he began collaborating with the Studio di Musica Antica Antonio Il Verso in Palermo and the Ensemble Elyma in Geneva, directed by Gabriel Garrido, his inspirational master for the performance practice of baroque music. From 2000 to today he has collaborated with numerous symphonic lyrical foundations. In 2006, he received the appointment ad quinquennium as Chapel Master of the Pantheon S. Maria ad Martyres (Rome); since 2005, he has been the titular organist of the Church of S. Andrea al Quirinale; in 2009, he was appointed Sistine Chapel Singer by Pope Benedict XVI, where he remains until 2011. In 2010 he reconstituted with the Order of the Mother of God, the Musical Chapel of the Basilica of S. Maria in Portico in Campitelli Sanctuary in Rome. On that occasion the W.O.D. appointed him Chapel Master and in the same year Vincenzo Di Betta created the vocal and instrumental ensemble La Cantoria Campitelli. Under the direction of his vocal and instrumental ensemble LA CANTORIA Campitelli, which he founded in 2011, he conducted the III Festival in 2013. La Cantoria Campitelli gave the first modern performance of Bonaventura Rubino's Messa de morti a cinque voci concertata of 1653, and for the XXI Season of the Ancient Music Concerts of the Associazione Antonio il Verso in Palermo, in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Palermo. In January 2016 in Malta, during the Valletta International Baroque Festival 2016, receiving very positive criticism from the specialized press. This Requiem was published by Tactus in 2014. In 2015 he performed the Missa in Angustia Pestilentiae by Orazio Benevoli in 1656, for sixteen voices and Organ, in its first modern performance and transcribed on the occasion of the 'Baroque exhibition in Rome. La meraviglia delle arti', held at the Fondazione Roma Museo-Palazzo Cipolla, engraved by Tactus and soon to be published.
