Een goede bekende van Daniel Rowland is de Italiaanse gitarist Alberto Mesirca. Zij vormen een duo en brachten in 2020 de cd Favorites uit. Die bevat een mix van Italiaanse belcanto, Spaanse folklore en Argentijnse tango. Alberto Mesirca studeerde aan het Conservatorium van Castelfranco Veneto (Italië) en sloot zijn studie af met de hoogste onderscheiding. Hij won vele prijzen en over zijn cd met sonates van Scarlatti oordeelde een recensent van de American Record Guide: ‘The best Scarlatti I’ve heard on solo guitar’. Mesirca heeft talrijke solorecitals gegeven en treedt op met bekende collegamusici en met diverse strijkkwartetten. Alberto is winner of the 2020 GRAMOPHONE Prize for “Best concept Album of the Year”. The Italian guitarist Alberto Mesirca was born in 1984. He completed his Bachelor and Master of Arts at the Conservatory of Castelfranco Veneto, before going on to study with Wolfgang Lendle at the Music Academy of Kassel in Germany. In 2007 he won the International Guitar Convention in Alessandria’s ‘Golden Guitar’ for ‘Best Recording’ for his disc Ikonostas, winning the same award again in 2013 for his ‘British Guitar Music’ recording with cellist Martin Rummel. The prestigious organisation also judged Mesirca to be ‘Best Upcoming Artist’ in 2009. As a chamber musician, Alberto worked with many illustrous musicians such as Dimitri Ashkenazy, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Daniel Rowland, Priya Mitchell, Marcelo Nisinman, among others. He has also collaborated with the Enesco, Ardeo and Acies string quartets, Quartetto d’Archi di Venezia, and Ex Novo Ensemble. Recent seasons have been characterized by intensive periods of concerts performances, lectures and masterclasses around the world. These have taken him to the Guitar Foundation of America Convention, Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival (where he performed the national premiere of a composition of György Kurtàg, working closely with the composer), Stradivari Foundation, Oxford Chamber Music Festival, Silesian Guitar Autumn in Poland, Festival Classique in The Hague, Lessines ‘Sons intensifs’ Festival, ‘Semana Tarrega’ in Valencia, and Beethoven Festival in Melbourne. Other highlights include the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Teatro Regio in Parma, Auditori Nacional in Valencia, Kunsthalle Wien and the Italian Institutes of Culture in Paris, Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm, Barcelona and San Francisco. Working with Marc Ribot, Alberto recorded the complete guitar works of the Haitian composer Frantz Casséus. Alberto was also responsible for the digitalization and creation of the Musical Archive of the Beyazit Library in Istanbul, Turkey in 2011. In collaboration with Hopkinson, Alberto published the previously unknown compositions by Francesco Da Milano which appeared in the Castelfranco Veneto 1565 Lute Manuscript, which are now distributed by Orphee Editions. This re-discovery led Dusan Bogdanovic to write a composition for Alberto on a theme of Da Milano called “Tre Ricercari sulla Compagna”. In 2013 Mesirca gave the world première of a composition written for him by the Cuban composer, guitarist and music director, Leo Brouwer.