48° North - Caldara, From Venice to Vienna

In Celtic mythology, the "banshee" is a messenger between worlds. The four musicians of The BanXhies have gathered around this figure and use music as a bridge from the outer to the inner world. On their debut album 48° North, Roxana Rastegar, Yaoré Talibart (violins), Suzanne Wolff (cello), and Louise Acabo (harpsichord) explore the aesthetic connections between Venice and Vienna through the figure of Antonio Caldara: it was here that Antonio Caldara settled, at the end of a journey that began much further south, in Venice, where he was born in 1670. Caldara gained recognition at a young age, with his career defined by pivotal encounters and constant travels. In Venice, he was influenced by the works of Giovanni Legrenzi and met Antonio Vivaldi, who, like Caldara himself, would later also travel to Vienna. There, Caldara found a cosmopolitan and flourishing environment, where the influence of traveling musicians like Georg Muffat had already paved the way for a dialogue between Italian and Germanic styles.