From Rome to Buenos Aires
Gift of Music Holiday Concert
Saturday, December 13, 2025
7:30 – 9:30 PM
Boulder Adventist Church
The Boulder Chamber Orchestra
Bahman Saless
conductor
Adam Żukiewicz
piano
Mario Stefano Pietrodarchi
bandoneon
Program
Florence Price (1887–1953)
Adoration (c. 1951)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052 (c. 1734)
Adam Żukiewicz - Piano
Ennio Morricone (1928–2020)
Three Melodies
Mario Stefano Pietrodarchi - Bandoneon
Nino Rota (1911–1979)
Homage to Federico Fellini (c. 1980)
Roberto Di Marino (b. 1956)
Suite Mediterranea (1999)
Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992)
Oblivion (1984)
Sur (c. 1985)
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Bahman Saless
Music Director
A conductor for the 21st century, Bahman Saless has been described as “entrepreneurial, creative, and plugged in,” and “an innately talented musician and conductor, without frills or ego.” His passion is palpable, his enthusiasm contagious, and the results he draws from musicians are, as one colleague put it, “extraordinary.” Saless’s musical path is anything but conventional. After studying violin in England as a teenager and composing music from a young age, he pursued violin studies with Lyman Bodman at Michigan State University while simultaneously earning a Ph.D. in theoretical physics. He later founded the […]
Mario Stefano Pietrodarchi
Bandoneon
Mario Stefano Pietrodarchi was born in Atessa on December 26th 1980. He began studying the accordion at the age of nine before switching to the bandoneon later. From 1993 to 2001, he studied at the F. Fenaroll Civic Music school in Lanciano with M° C. Calista and with M° C. Chlacchlaretta. In 2007, he graduated with honours from Santa Cecilla Conservatory of Music in Rome. In 2009, Mario played at the Colosseo (Rome) with Andrea Bocelll, Angela Gheorghiu, Andrea Griminelli and the Abruzzo Symphony Orchestra. The event "L'alba separa dalla luce l'ombra" was in aid of the earthquake victims of […]
Adam Żukiewicz
Piano
Adam Piotr Żukiewicz is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed concert pianist. He concertized across Europe, United States, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Hong Kong, and Macau, and his performances were broadcast in the USA, Canada, Italy, Slovenia, Germany, and Poland. Mr. Żukiewicz consistently receives critical acclaim, while his innovative programming - focused on exploring connections between the popular and the lesser known gems of the traditional and contemporary repertoire - continues to engage and inspire audiences around the world. […]
PROGRAM NOTES
Florence Price (1887–1953)
Adoration (c. 1951)
Florence Price’s Adoration is a short yet radiant work originally composed for organ in the early 1950s, likely for use in worship settings. Deeply lyrical and imbued with spiritual warmth, the piece has since been arranged for numerous instrumentations, most notably for violin or cello with piano or string accompaniment. A gentle melody unfolds over a calm, sustained accompaniment, inviting the listener into a space of reflection and peace. Like much of Price’s music, Adoration marries European Romanticism with the idioms of African-American spirituals, creating a musical voice that is both deeply personal and universally resonant.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052 (c. 1734)
Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor is one of his most dramatic and enduring works. Composed around 1734 and likely based on an earlier lost violin concerto, the piece was reimagined for harpsichord—a novel concept at the time, making this one of the earliest true keyboard concertos. The first movement opens with bold, stormy gestures that showcase the soloist’s dexterity. In contrast, the middle Adagio offers a lyrical, almost meditative melody suspended over soft, pulsating harmonies. The finale returns with exuberant energy and intricate counterpoint. The concerto’s compelling blend of power and pathos has ensured its popularity with audiences and performers for centuries.
Ennio Morricone (1928–2020)
Three Melodies
A towering figure in 20th-century film music, Ennio Morricone blended classical training with an unerring instinct for evocative storytelling. Three Melodies distills the lyricism and emotional immediacy for which he is renowned, offering a concert suite that moves seamlessly between tenderness, nostalgia, and quiet drama. Each melody demonstrates Morricone’s gift for crafting memorable themes that feel both intimate and expansive.
Nino Rota (1911–1979)
Homage to Federico Fellini (c. 1980)
Few artistic partnerships in 20th-century cinema rival the enduring collaboration between Nino Rota and Federico Fellini. Over the course of more than two decades, Rota’s music became inseparable from Fellini’s surreal, bittersweet storytelling—waltzes that teetered between gaiety and melancholy, circus marches tinged with irony, and lyrical themes that could conjure entire worlds with a handful of notes.
In Homage to Federico Fellini, completed near the end of Rota’s life, the composer distilled this shared legacy into a concert work that feels both affectionate and elegiac. The piece weaves together thematic gestures and atmospheric colors reminiscent of their film collaborations, not as direct quotations, but as memories refracted through the prism of late style. Graceful dance rhythms give way to dreamlike interludes, while unexpected harmonic turns evoke the whimsical yet deeply human contradictions that permeated Fellini’s films.
The music stands as a personal tribute: an artist’s farewell to a friend, a body of work, and a shared imaginative universe. In its blend of nostalgia, theatrical flair, and quiet poignancy, it captures the essence of a creative dialogue that shaped the sound of Italian cinema for generations.
Roberto Di Marino (b. 1956)
Suite Mediterranea (1999)
Roberto Di Marino’s Suite Mediterranea is a vibrant evocation of the cultures that encircle the Mediterranean Sea. Across its movements, the suite moves fluidly between buoyant dance figures, lyrical song-like passages, and harmonies that suggest both folk traditions and modern sensibilities. Rhythms often bear the buoyancy of seafaring dances, with accents that recall the sway of boats in harbor or the animated pulse of market streets. Melodic writing is warmly inflected, drawing on modes and intervals rooted in regional styles, yet refracted through a contemporary harmonic lens. Di Marino’s orchestrations allow each movement to breathe in its own color—sometimes bright and sunlit, sometimes shaded with introspection—while maintaining a narrative arc that suggests a journey through diverse ports of call. The work is both a celebration of place and a reminder of the sea’s enduring role as a bridge between cultures.
Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992)
Oblivion (1984) and Sur (c. 1985)
Few composers bridged the worlds of popular tradition and concert artistry as deftly as Astor Piazzolla. Oblivion, written for the 1984 film Enrico IV, is a slow, sighing tango whose gentle phrases seem to hover between longing and surrender. Its intimacy and unhurried pulse allow every inflection to carry emotional weight. Sur (meaning “South”), composed around the same time, broadens the scope: its melodic contours and expansive phrases evoke a deep attachment to Buenos Aires and the spirit of its southern neighborhoods. Heard together, the two pieces form a kind of diptych—one inward-looking and wistful, the other infused with the spacious melancholy of memory—offering a portrait of Piazzolla’s art at its most lyrical and affecting.
Program Notes by Reginald Winters