This premiere Australian performance by world-renowned Corsican a capella choir A Filetta, is guaranteed to be a 2013 Castlemaine State Festival highlight. A Filetta’s glorious, divinely pure, polyphonic harmonies mirror the magnificent and rugged beauty of the group’s native Corsica, an island still deeply and proudly immersed in ancient tradition. With a sound that is stirringly sublime, these male choralists sensitively detect the movement and vibration in each other’s bodies to blend harmoniously into a single instrument.

Led by founder Jean-Claude Acquaviva, A Filetta’s music encompasses traditional compositions as well as its own interpretation of the island’s contemporary culture, without straying from its roots. To assert its Corsican identity, the group’s name refers to a type of fern that grows on the island of Corsica.

A Filetta will be performing works from the very traditional Corsican chant paghjella (sacred hymns), to contemporary works by Jean-Claude Acquaviva for Medea, Requiem, Pessoassion, theatre and film music.

Jean-Claude Acquaviva — seconda
Paul Giansily — terza
Jean-Luc Geronimi — seconda
Jean Sicurani — bassu
Maxime Vuillamier — bassu
Ceccè Acquaviva — bassu

“I don’t want to say anything, I just want to think back to this most intimate, intense, majestic concert I have ever experienced.”
Suzan Lohez, Paris, 25 April 2011.