QUIRINO MAIANI

Salvatore Serra. Born on February 3, 1910, in Soleto, in the province of Lecce, in 1910, after graduating in composition and instrumentation for a band at the “S. Cecilia” Conservatory in Rome, he attended numerous courses for musical improvement. He served as a conductor and conductor for various bands: the Conversano band, where he was the assistant to the famous Giuseppe Piantoni; the Formia band (Lt) from 1949 to 1953; the Castellana Grotte band from 1956 to 1957, and finally, the Francavilla Fontana band. On June 24, 1949, during the celebrations of St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of the city of Formia, the band of the city of Conversano, under the direction of Piantoni, with Serra as the assistant conductor, was called to perform. From that moment, he decided to move to Formia, where he lived on Via della Forma in the glassworks building, and where he began to establish, with the help of a local committee, a second band called “City of Formia,” in addition to the existing “Cesidio Carestia” band directed by Maestro Umberto Scipione. Maestro Serra also took on the responsibility of purchasing musical instruments, and the initial rehearsals were held in the premises of the Suio baths. The first concert was performed on September 18, 1950, in Guglielmo Marconi Square, which is now known as Santa Teresa Square. It was an extraordinary success reported by the newspapers of the time. In 1961, Maestro Salvatore Serra led the Grand Band Concert of Francavilla Fontana to be awarded the gold medal by the Provincial Tourism Board of Rome for the service rendered in the capital on May 23 and 24 of the same year. He composed magnificent pieces for the band, including symphonic marches and symphonic poems, unfortunately, they fell into oblivion and were no longer performed. Under his direction, the Francavilla Fontana band achieved great fame and had numerous successes on tours in major cities across Italy. From June 29 to July 10, 1958, they performed a series of concerts in the historic and glorious “Ruffini” cloister in San Remo: local newspapers, including Il Popolo Ligure and Il Secolo XIX, praised the band’s performances, with even the Rinnovo Cittadino stating that the Francavilla band concert was “one of the most esteemed in Italy.” He passed away on October 28, 1965: his funeral was a grand triumph, a majestic and vast gathering of people who, to the mournful sound of Nino Ippolito’s Requiem march, mourned the man who had elevated the city’s band concert to great heights.

Alba Serra was the second case in Italy of a female orchestra and band conductor. She was born in Rome on September 23, 1938, and graduated in piano from the “Giovanni Paisiello” Conservatory in Taranto, performing Felix Mendelssohn’s Rondò Capriccioso for her final exam. Before embarking on her career as a band conductor, she led the children’s band at the “S. Antonio” Orphanage in Oria and later joined her father in leading the bands in Formia, Castellana Grotte, and, of course, Francavilla Fontana. She permanently replaced her father as the leader of the Francavilla band in 1965. The baritone flugelhorn player of the Francavilla band during those years, Nino Ippolito, dedicated his symphonic march “Albarella” to the young conductor. Her future stops included the cities of Salice Salentino, Brindisi, Mesagne, and Carovigno, many of which featured lyric-symphonic concerts, characterized by the presence of singers. She currently resides in Rome.

Maestro Michele Lufrano was born on April 20, 1915, in S. Arcangelo di Potenza. He directed his interests towards music, pursuing specific studies that enabled him to become a skilled soprano flugelhorn soloist and to join various bands, including the prestigious one in Squinzano, led by Gennaro Abbate. His admiration for Abbate, but above all, his desire to learn and improve, were the driving forces that led him to meticulously transcribe his master’s entire repertoire. In 1938, he became the conductor of the band in his hometown and of the II Infantry Regiment – Arezzo Division. Around the 1940s, he conducted the Roccanova band, followed by the one in Valsinni. Later, he embarked on composition studies by correspondence with the renowned conductor Giovanni Orsomando, interspersed with periodic personal meetings in Caserta. After leading the Carovigno band concert in 1951, he was called to Squinzano as the substitute conductor for Gennaro Abbate. The maestro’s future stops included the cities of Lanciano, Conversano, Lanciano once again, Castellana Grotte, and Mottola. Despite the loss of his wife, he continued to conduct with diligence and expertise, leading the band concerts in Squinzano, “Ferruccio Burco,” as well as in the Abruzzo Region, Chieti, Gravina di Puglia, and Manduria. The last band ensemble he conducted was in the city of Teano, where he served for seventy-five days. During his extended stay in Molfetta, he gave music lessons to Riccardo Muti, who later rose to worldwide fame as a conductor of renowned orchestras. He always refused to stay in hotels and instead slept in accommodations with his fellow musicians. Between Christmas and New Year’s in 1996, he experienced a sudden spike in blood sugar levels that led to his hospitalization. He was admitted to the “Monte Imperatore” healthcare facility, where he passed away in Noci due to a heart attack on February 17, 1996, at eleven in the morning. He left behind a lasting legacy in our memory, including numerous marches for bands, various symphonic poems, and several operatic transcriptions.

Raffaele Miglietta was born in Francavilla Fontana on February 21, 1919. He graduated in Clarinet, Composition, Banda Instrumentation and Choral Singing from the “S. Cecilia” Conservatory in Rome. Initiated to the banda direction by maestro Antonio D’Elia (among other things, historical adapter of Respighi’s Pini di Roma for Banda), he began his career as a banda conductor conducting in Carosino (Taranto). Later he moved to Tuglie (Lecce) to lead the local banda. After the Second World War in 1951 he profitably got on top of the Banda di Corato. It is said that in 1961, on the occasion of the election of President J.F. Kennedy, Miglietta wrote and recorded a march titled Kennediana, which he then sent to the United States. Vincenzo Ciliberti says: “The luck was that in the summer of ’62 Mrs. Kennedy came to Italy on vacation and our banda was on the Amalfi coast for a party. In agreement with the committee we went to Ravello where the First Lady was staying and we played the composition live. Then the greeting from the lady, with the promise of organizing a tour in America. Everything went up in smoke for the assassination of the President”. However, the experience of Corato lasted until 1972 and then he moved in the following two years to lead the Banda di Montefalcione (Av) taking the position of Vincenzo Alise. In 1975 the Maestro recomposed the Banda di Acquaviva delle Fonti without the patronage of the municipal administration, to direct it also in the years ’77 and ’78 spaced out with a brief return to Corato in 1976. The future stop was in his Francavilla Fontana, where it seems he brought a large number of instrumentalists from Ruvo di Puglia and Corato and where he remained until 1982 before being replaced by Michele Santaniello. Later he directed the Banda di Trani which had Vito La Selva as tour representative and coordinator. Nino Farì wanted him in 1987 as the master of the reconstruction of the “Classico Concerto Bandistico Schipa – D’Ascoli Città di Lecce”. He was a conductor in Lecce until 1988 and then moved to the podium of the Banda di Bisceglie. The association with the soloists Vincenzo Ciliberti, sopranino flugelhorn, Cataldo Valerio, tenor flugelhorn and Cataldo Maggiulli on the baritone flugelhorn, nicknamed in the squares “Trio delle Meraviglie” [trio of wonders], in the same years as the homonymous football trio Gullit-Rijkaard-Van Basten, is historic. The pieces he usually preferred to conduct in the cassarmonica were the “Preludes” by Liszt, “Gioconda”, “Lucia di Lammermoor” and the symphonic poem “Carri Armati” by Giulio Andrea Marchesini. Finally, among other works, he instrumented for banda Don Checco, comic opera by Nicola De Giosa and Verdi’s Attila. He died on December 5, 1994.

All recordings by Aldino Miceli except * by Franco Leo, ** by Raifon Trieste, *** by unknown, # Umberto Attanasi – Damiano Pentassuglia Archive, @ by Vincenzo Ippolito.