MARE NOSTRUM / THE MEDITERRANEAN

Mare nostrum was founded by Andrea de Carlo in 2005 as a viola ensemble. Soon afterwards, the ensemble expanded to include more varied instrumentation and today the repertoire is primarily based on the baroque music of Roman composers, with a special emphasis on the vocal music of Alessandro Stradella (1639-1682). De Carlo’s original research on the relationship between the expressiveness, sensibility, and nature of sounds has opened new prospects for the aesthetics of vocal and instrumental music of the 17th century. The numerous releases of the ensemble include: Orgelbüchleins, featuring works by Johann Sebastian Bach (2010), Le Concert des Violes (2010), Coup de cour (2010), and Nueva España (2012), among others. Under the leadership of Andrea De Carlo, the ensemble released a collection of CDs featuring works of Alessandro Stradella as part of a project for the Arcana label. These CDs feature the world premiere of the serenade La forza delle stelle, the oratorio S. Giovanni Crisostomo – as the first release in the world (2014), the world premiere of the oratorio S. Editta, vergine e monaca, regina d’Inghiliterra (2016), the oratorio S. Pelagia (2017), the opera La Doriclea (2018), the comic opera Il Trespolo tutore (2020), and the recently discovered opera Amare e Fingere (2022).

Andrea De Carlo, a leading expert on the compositions of Alessandro Stradella, graduated in in both Double Bass and Physics from the University of La Sapienza in Rome. He has served as Principal Double Bass in the Teatro Massimo Orchestra in Palermo, the Orchestra Regionale Toscana, and the Orchestra Regionale del Lazio. His encounter with the viola da gamba was by chance but proved decisive for his further career. As a violist, Andrea De Carlo has performed with leading early music ensembles such as Elyma (Gabriel Garrido), the Labyrinto Viola Ensemble (Paolo Pandolfo), Concerto Italiano (Rinaldo Alessandrini), and La grande Ecurie et la Chambre du Roi (Jean Claude Malgoire). He has conducted the Arturo Toscanini Philharmonic Orchestra from Parma. Since 2020, Andrea De Carlo has been collaborating with the Teatro Carlo Felice from Genoa, where he opened the 2020/2021 season conducting Stradella’s opera Il Trespolo tutore. This was followed by the conducting of Stradella’s oratorio S. G. Battista and a performance with the Mare Nostrum Ensemble and the orchestra of the mentioned theater. In 2022, he conducted the Teatro alla Scala Chamber Ensemble at a concert dedicated to the vocal and instrumental music of Alessandro Stradella. Andrea De Carlo is the winner of the prestigious German award for music publications – Preis der Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik.