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Sacred music of yesterday and today for the Apulia Antiqua festival directed by Giovanni Rota, which on Saturday 14 December, at 8 p.m., in the church of San Francesco d'Assisi, in Monopoli, offers the concert 'Magnum Mysterium'. The protagonist will be the youth choir Armonia Sonora accompanied on the piano by Danilo Cacciatore and directed by Erica Pizzileo, founder of the ensemble, born from the fusion of two Salento choirs, the Compagnia degli Ultimi from Alliste and the Junior Band association from Melissano, which will produce the concert.

The programme ranges from modern-day composers back to composers of the Renaissance and medieval periods. Opening the evening will be Palmo Liuzzi's 'Gustave e videte' and 'Ave Regina' by Rolando Dipiazza and Paula Gallardo, followed by the spiritual Christmas lauda 'Nell apparir del sempiterno sole' by Francesco Soto De Langa, a Spanish cantor, composer, presbyter and music publisher who lived at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. The repertoire also includes 'Altissima Luce' and 'Gloria in cielo' from the 'Laudario di Cortona', a 13th century manuscript codex, as well as the piece that inspires the title of this concert, 'O Magnum Mysterium' by Mariano Garau, a contemporary Sardinian composer performed all over the world, author of romances for soprano, tenor, children's songs, masses and motets for choir. The medieval Latin Christmas carol 'Personent hodie' will also be performed, another Christmas carol, but from the second half of the 20th century on a text by Eugenio Costa and melody by Jo Akepsimas, 'Notte di luce', and again, 'Chiara è la notte' by Giacomo Mezzalira, 'The Lord Bless You and Keep You' by the Englishman John Rutter, and finally, 'Gaudeamus hodie' by the American composer Earlene Rentz.