CAPPELLA NEAPOLITANA - ANTONIO FLORIO ASSOCIAZIONE - Italy

Ensemble founded in 1987 by Antonio Florio, initially under the name of Cappella della Pietà de ' Turchini, the Cappella Neapolitana-Antonio Florio is made up of instrumentalists and singers specialized in the execution of the Neapolitan musical repertoire of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the rediscovery of rare composers. The originality of the programs and the rigorous respect for Baroque performance practice make it one of the spearheads of Italian and European musical life and one of the most famous baroque ensembles in the world. The ensemble was invited to perform on important stages around the world (Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome, Teatro di San Carlo, Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, Berliner Philharmonie, Wiener Konzerthaus, Lope de Vega Theater of Seville, Association Scarlatti in Naples, La Monnaie Theater in Brussels, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Teatro Colon of Buenos Aires, Cité de la Musique of Paris, Philharmonie of Cologne, Opera of Lausanne) and it took part in the major European ancient music festivals: Monteverdi Festival of Cremona, Festival of Versailles, Nancy, Nantes, Metz, Caen, Ambronay, Festival de Otoño of Madrid, Festival of Early Music of Tel Aviv, Barcelona, Potsdam, BBC Early Music Festival, Saison Musicale de la Fondation Royaumount, La Coruña Mozart Festival. The Cappella Neapolitana is also one of the Italian ensembles that, thanks to its very high executive quality has held the most concerts abroad. During its career, it toured in China, Japan, the United States, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Russia, and of course throughout Europe. 

The ensemble has recorded for Radio France, for the BBC in London, for Belgian, Spanish, German and Austrian radio and in 1998 was engaged in the making of a documentary for Belgian television and a film dedicated to comic opera for the Franco-German broadcaster ARTE. Particularly intense is the recording activity for the major European labels, with assets of over thirty recordings dedicated to the rediscovery of the immense Neapolitan Baroque heritage and on more occasions awarded by international critics with the greatest prizes. Among the numerous awards received in thirty years we remember at least: the Vivaldi prize from the Cini Foundation of Venice, the Abbiati prize of the National Music Critics Association, numerous "Diapason d'Or" for many recordings and the "Charles Cross" Award of the Academie du Disque. 

Since 2016, the Orchestra has been in residency at the Domus Ars in Naples and acts as a centre of research and production in the field of ancient southern Italian music. The honorary President of the new Cappella Neapolitana orchestra is the European-renowned music critic Juán Angel Vela del Campo. 
2018 was a particularly important year for the Cappella Neapolitana: it was triumphal the reception of the public and critics for Monteverdi's "Orfeo" at the Teatro Regio in Turin, the concerts at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Ghent, and the modern premiere of the "Siroe king of Persia" of Leonardo Vinci at the San Carlo Theater in Naples, recorded by the Dynamic label.  In 2019, both Misteria Paschalia Festival in Krakow and the Utrecht Festival - dedicated their programming to “NAPLES”. Cappella Neapolitana and Antonio Florio, were a protagonist of excellence in these festivals, with Antonio Florio also invited as artistic director of Misteria Paschalia.  Since 2020, The association has been a member of REMA since 2020; their most recent tour in January 2022 took them to Eindhoven, Utrecht, Tilburg and Groningen with the cellist Giovanni Sollima.
2021 is characterized by the collaboration of the Cappella Neapolitana – Antonio Florio with the tenor Ian Bostridge. This collaboration led to the concert at the Hamburg Philharmonie in 2021 and the release of the album recorded for Warner-Erato.