Umberto Forni, organist in Verona, is the author of the project Gaude Barbara beata, together withi Licia Mari e Damiano Rossi✞. The project, started in 2007, is supported by the Mantuan Diocese in order to promote the Antegnati organ and the musical repertoire of the palatine basilica.
Umberto Forni also directs every year the ensemble of specialists (Cappella Musicale di Santa Barbara) which performs on the 4 December the concert in honour of S. Barbara, the climax of the yearly music festival hosted by Gaude Barbara beata. Among his various projects, there are:
- in 2011, a program with music mainly by Stefano Nascimbeni (CD edited by Tactus, Bologna);
- in 2012, a concert with the vespers by Gian Giacomo Gastoldi and motets by Giovanni Battista Sacchi and Lorenzo Sanci;
- in 2013, a concert with a mass and polychoral motets by Benedetto Pallavicino (live recorded);
- in 2014, a program with music by Francesco Rovigo (CD edited by Tactus, Bologna);
- in 2015, a concert dedicated to Claudio Monteverdi and his teacher, Ingegneri;
- in 2016, the first modern integral performance of the Apparato Musicale di Messa, Sinfonie, Canzoni, Mottetti et Litanie della Beata Vergine (1613) by Amante Franzoni (CD edited by Tactus, Bologna);
- in 2017, a concert with music by Ottavio Bargnani and Benedetto Pallavicino;
- in 2018, a concert for the academics of the 18th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music (Cremona-Mantua, 10-15 July 2018) and, on 4 December, the first modern performance of a mass by Paolo Isnardi, likely composed for duke Guglielmo’s funeral (1587);
- in 2019, as a part of the project “Mantova: Città di Giulio Romano”, a concert dedicated to Giovanni Battista Bertani, pupil to Giulio Romano, with music by Girolamo Cavazzoni and Giaches de Wert.
