Composer’s Spotlight: Chiara Evangelista plays ‘Baroque Flamenco’

Composer’s Spotlight Series: Chiara Evangelista plays ‘Baroque Flamenco’

Chiara Evangelista describes Baroque Flamenco as a fun and unconventional piece, which makes the audience enthusiastic, including children. She chose to learn the piece because of its uniqueness and its connection to her Italian background’s connection with Spanish culture. Playing it has given her a sense of freedom and enjoyment.

Her advice to others who want to know more about Baroque Flamenco is to dig deep into the Flamenco culture to understand the piece better. She expresses gratitude to Deborah for promoting a more modern image of the harp.

Chiara Evangelista

Chiara Evangelista is a harpist from Italy. She began her musical journey very young with piano and violin before playing the harp. She graduated in Rome, and through this wonderful job, she traveled a lot in Italy, Spain, France, Scotland, Austria, and Japan, and won several National and International competitions.

She finds fascination in the harp every day in its extreme versatility, it’s an endless research with its sonority. She likes to go against the grain and search for unknown pieces of repertoire, unusual ensembles, and new genres.

Continue reading below for the full interview with Chiara Evangelista

Watch Chiara Evangelista (harp) as she plays Baroque Flamenco along with Giuseppe Salvagni (percussion) at the Palazzo Rospigliosi, near Rome, Italy.

A Mini-Interview with Chiara

How would you describe your experience of playing the piece?

Fun and unconventional.

What do people say when you play this piece? Do you have favorite memories of people’s reactions to it?

I think this piece is brilliant because I’ve never seen so much enthusiasm both in classical musicians and people who are not accostumed to classical music. You can see that even if it’s not a short piece the listeners are always caught by it for the while lenght of the piece, even children!

What drew you to this piece – why did you choose to learn it?

I was looking to learn something different and unconventional. As in Italy we are very close to Spanish culture I felt this kind of music part of my background and this piece is really a way to help people to understand that the harp could really give much more to new genres.

What does this piece add to your repertoire (and/or your life) that you didn’t have before?

It gave me much more freedom than I had before: you can play it in so many different ways and it always works good. In addition, I can say that it is both an amazing piece to close a concert and to break the ice. I never feel nervous when I’m playing it, I just have fun and enjoy it.

What would you tell someone else who’s thinking of learning this piece that you wish you’d known before you learned it?

I suggest to watch or even go to a real Flamenco show with guitar and dancers and feel the rhythm and see the match between movements and percussion. I did and it really changed my interpretation of it.

What do you think you can get from working directly with the composer of the piece that you can’t get from the sheet music?

Well, as I said before you can play it in many ways: more cantabile, or virtuoso, and so on. It would be great to know how it was conceived and which one is the way to be as close as possible to the original spirit, to create a greater connection between the composer and the performer.

Anything else you want to say?

I really want to thank you Deborah for sharing with us the opportunity to let the harp be seen in a more modern way, close to new generations and styles of music.

Please follow this artist on social media and let them know what has opened up for your own self-expression in seeing and hearing their performance, and please share in the comments below.

Instagram: @chiaraevangelistaharp
Youtube: Chiara Evangelista Harp
Facebook: Chiara Evangelista Harp
Website: chiaraevangelista.com

Stay tuned for more artists soon and check out my Composer’s Spotlight blog series, featuring other talented musicians who played my song!