Irina Bogomolova from Russia has won the 16th INTERNATIONAL MUSIC COMPETITION PIETRO ARGENTO in Gioia Del Colle, Italy. Second was Serena Valuzzi from Italy. In Third came Dimitriu Dragos from Romania. The competition in is dedicated to Pietro Argento.
Born in Gioia del Colle in 1909, Pietro Argento started his musical studies under the guidance of his father, a soloist and tenor of the Premiato Concerto Bandistico “Città di Gioia del Colle”. Pietro continued his studies at the Academy of Music in Naples were he studied piano, organ, oboe. He received a diploma as a composer and a conductor under the guidance of F. Cilea. Later he received an advanced diploma as a specialized orchestra conductor at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome. His career went on as a conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome, permanent conductor of the RAI Symphony Orchestra in Milan, conductor of the "Orchestra dell'urbe" in Rome, conductor of the Chamber Orchesta of the "Società del quartetto” in Rome, permanent contactor of the Symphony Orchestra in Bari. From 1952 on Pietro Argento held the chair as a conductor of orchestra practice at the Santa Cecilia conservatory.
He was greatly successful in Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Portugal, Switzerland, and in the USSR. Subsenquently he did nationwide tours and was particularly successful in Kiev, Moscow where he was the first western conductor to record with the Soviet State Symphony Orchestra. Pietro Argento conducted the greatest concert artists and composed symphonies, chamber music, stage music, sound tracks, documentaries and recorded with various record companies like RCA,Mercurio and others. Maestro Argento was awarded several honours. In 1961 he was awarded the "Medaglia d'oro di I classe di benemerito dell'arte della cultura" by the President of Italian Republic. Pietro died on January 15th 1994.
