21 march  2026   7.30pm

Covid-19, Survival Techniques

Francesco Filidei (1973)
Proesie, Libro I (2020, 60')  for solo voice                                                                                                                                        

texts by Federico Maria Sardelli
Jeanne Crousaud  voice
Marco Lenzi  musicologist on stage

Anymali I
Dove il Proeta
Gitarella
Conglomerati
Dormi Tesoro
Per me
Tutte le Cose
Poesia Americana
Nomen Domini
Lungomare
Novembre
La mamma
Trasloco
Melampo
Pitagora Moderno
Saperci porci
A dorso d’orso
Das fröhliche Alphabet
Odi
L’Ispirazione
Invan Ivàn
Cane gonfio
Il Francesconi / Il Ginestroni
Riposa
Ardimento
RAN DEL LO
Pappardelle
Occhio
Sensibilità II
Variazioni sull’Aria della Forforetta                                                                                                                              

The Proesie are a cycle of thirty pieces for solo voice composed by Francesco Filidei, based on texts by Federico Maria Sardelli. The texts, small jewels of caricature and irony, perfect examples of Tuscan humour, were already known to the composer since the late 1980s, when they were published in the satirical periodical “Il Vernacoliere”, and later collected into a dedicated book showcasing very different languages and styles.  The pieces were set to music during the Covid epidemic, following a commission from Radio France, and quickly became a real exercise in style.

“I was fortunate to meet Francesco Filidei at the Opéra Comique, - explains Jeanne Crousaud - during five months of workshops, in which I lent my voice. Filidei would furiously write down notes, phrases or big musical ideas and I would follow him, deciphering his work. I remember being immediately struck by his speed, his efficiency, his sensitivity, his vivacity and his knowledge of bel canto.

Subsequently, we collaborated on the creation of ‘Proesie’, a series of entertaining sketches based on texts by Federico Maria Sardelli, for France Musique. After the first three sketches and their great success on social media, we became passionate about the game and created one a day for 30 days. 

The creative whirlwind was simple: stuck at home, in the isolation of lockdown, Francesco composed a ‘proesia’ a day and I deciphered it, sang it and immediately created it. I had so much fun, it was the very definition of ‘limitations create freedom’. 

The freedom to imagine everything and to invent many settings, the constraint of not being able to leave the house and of sticking rigorously to a score in a short time.

Having subsequently performed other works of his, our artistic relationship has strengthened. Francesco is a man deeply rooted in the world: his art is born from the depths of customs and traditions, which he embraces with rare intensity. But it is precisely this rootedness that allows him to go beyond, with a language that arises from a long inner gestation, like a self-evident fact.”

2026_Tecniche di sopravvivenza

Francesco Filidei was born in Pisa (5^th May 1973). He graduated from the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence and the National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse Conservatory in Paris. As an organist and composer, he has been invited to participate in major contemporary music festivals worldwide. His works have been performed by numerous world-class orchestras, including WDR, SWR, RSO Vienna, RAI, Tokyo Philharmonic, BRSO and the Philharmonic Orchestras of Monte Carlo, Nice, Picardie, Helsinki, Vilnius and Warsaw, to name a few. His works have also been performed by most of the world’s leading specialised ensembles (Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Klangforum, Musikfabrik etc.) in venues such as the Philharmonie in Berlin, Cologne, Essen, Hamburg, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Suntory Hall and the Tokyo Opera House, the Theaterhaus in Vienna, the Herkulessaal in Munich, the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Opéra de Rennes, the Opéra Comique in Paris and the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.
He has received numerous awards, including the 2006 Salzburg Music Prize, the Takefu Prize, the 2009 Siemens Music Prize, the 2011 International Rostrum of Composers UNESCO Picasso-Miro Medal, the 2015 Abbiati Prize, the 2016 Les Grands Prix Internationaux du Disque for his album Forse, an award from the Fondazione Simone e Cino Del Duca in 2018, the SWR Orchestra Prize in 2021 during the 100^th Donaueschinger Musiktage for his Oratorio The Red Death based on a novel by Edgar Allan Poe and the 2025 Grand Prix Antoine Livio.
In 2005 Filidei received a scholarship from the Akademie Schloss Solitude; in 2006 and 2007 he was a member of Casa de Velàzquez; in 2012-2013 he was a Pensionnaire at Villa Medici; in 2015 he was invited by the DAAD to stay in Berlin for a year. Filidei has also been composer-in-residence for numerous ensembles and music festivals. He has taught composition in the Voix Nouvelles programme of the Royaumont Foundation, at the University of Iowa, at Takefu (Tokyo), at the International Academy of Tchaikovsky City (Russia), at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse (Germany), and at numerous institutions and universities around the world (Ircam, Cnsmdp, Esmuc, Musikene, the Conservatoires of Strasburg and Moscow, the University of Berlin UDK, the universities of Hannover, Stuttgart, Graz, San Diego, Tokyo, and Hong Kong among others). In 2016 he was appointed Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
In a 2017 opinion poll conducted by Classic Voice of one hundred leading figures in the music world, Francesco Filidei was named one of the ten most interesting composers on the international scene. In 2018 Filidei joined the Fondazione I Teatri di Reggio Emilia (Italy), as musical consultant, and the Villa Medici in Rome, as artistic director of the contemporary music festival, Controtempo. In 2022 he was appointed composer-in-residence at the Teatro dell'Opera in Genoa (Teatro Carlo Felice) for three years. Filidei’s first opera, Giordano Bruno, had its world premiere in 2015 in Porto (Portugal) and has since been performed in theatres across Europe. His opera, L'inondation, with libretto by Joel Pommerat, was composed for the 2019 season of the Opéra Comique in Paris, Rennes and Nantes and was revived in Paris and Luxembourg in 2023. His most recent opera, Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose), was commissioned by the Teatro alla Scala and the Opéra de Paris, in co-production with the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. Filidei’s works have been published by Casa Ricordi since 2018. His previous works are published by RaiCom.

Jeanne Crousaud – Daughter of artistic parents (mother, a classical ballerina and father, theatre technical director), Jeanne Crousaud received a comprehensive musical education from a young age, studying violin, piano, musical theory, singing and classical dance. After attending the Paris Conservatory (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, with professors Malcolm Walker, Anne le Bozec, Susan Manoff and Elène Golgevit), she continued her opera studies at the Opéra Studio in Lyon and subsequently won three prizes at the Georges Liccioni Competition. She was then given two leading roles simultaneously: Ciboulette in Offenbach’s Mesdames de la Halle at the Opéra Studio in Lyon and Il Piccolo Principe (The Little Prince) in Michaël Lévinas’s opera of the same name at the Théâtre du Châtelet, the Lausanne Opera, Geneva, and Lille, where she achieved great success. These two roles immediately define the young singer’s “dual” career. On the one hand, musical and theatrical contemporary creation, which see collaborations with the most representative composers of this century: Michaël Lévinas in Il Piccolo Principe and Euphonia, Francesco Filidei with L'inondation, Le Proesie (Milan Music Festival, Mantua and Pisa) and Il Cantico delle Creature (Opera di Genova), Jules Matton with L'Odissea (Théâtre Impérial di Compiègne, Limoges Opera, Rennes Opera), Violeta Cruz in La Princesse Légère (Opéra Comique and Lille Opera), Jean-Luc Hervé, Benjamin Attahir, and Franck Bedrossian. On the other hand, her commitment to French, Mozartian and Italian operatic  repertoires: in the roles of Ophelia in Hamlet  at the Saint-Etienne Opera, Blondchen in The Abduction from the Seraglio at the Tours Opera, Aspasia in Mitridate, Fantasia in Viaggio nella luna at the Montpellier, Reims and Metz Operas, Elvira in Italiana in Algeri, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Marie in Fille du régiment, Clorinda in Isouard’s Cendrillon, Arthur in Nonne Sanglante, Musetta in La Bohème, and Nicette in Pré-aux-clercs at the Opéra Comique. Very committed to the theatrical creation of the roles offered to her, she recently played Ophelia in Hamlet, directed by K. Warlikowski and Marie in Fille du régiment, directed by L. Pelly and conducted by E. Pidò at the Opéra National de Paris. Her passion for research into the unspeakable, time, and space, has led Jeanne to work – for a year - directing, designing and conceptualising multidisciplinary projects (Squeak Boum at the Théâtre de l'Athénée, Théâtre de Cornouaille, Grand Théâtre de Caen and the Quartz in Brest; Le Proesie at the Teatro Gerolamo in Milano and at the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua). She also collaborates with pulmonary researchers at the Pitié-Salpétrière Hospital in Paris on a therapeutic ventilation project.

Marco Lenzi (Livorno 1967), musician and teacher, has been involved in contemporary music leading an intense seminar programme and publishing the first Italian monograph on Morton Feldman (Le Sfere Ricordi/Lim 2009) and various articles in specialised magazines (“Musica/Realtà”, “MusikTexte”, “Quaderni di Octandre”, “Nuova Civiltà delle Macchine”, “Tetraktys”). His compositions, published by Ars Publica, have been performed in Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Spain and the United States by soloists and ensembles such as Giancarlo Cardini, Livia Rado, Dario Calderone, Francesco Gesualdi, Ilaria Baldaccini, Riccardo Vaglini, Collettivo Rituale, L’Arsenale, Tubi&Corde, Ensemble Conductus, and Bread Crumbs. He has collaborated with several rock musicians, including Anthony Reynolds and Virginiana Miller. He has taught in public schools for over thirty years.