Stradivarius is pleased to announce the release of the new album by Mirco de Stefani (b. 1959), a composer whose catalog features more than eighty works for solo instrument, full orchestra, chamber orchestra, vocal and instrumental chamber ensembles, and choir, as well as the opera Le Baccanti and several essays on musical aesthetics. The fruit of continuous experimentation, research, and design, the new album Canzoni del giardino incantato. Passeggiata musicale nell'Orto Botanico di Padova (Songs of the Enchanted Garden. A Musical Stroll through the Botanical Garden of Padua), featuring soprano Barbara Zanichelli and pianist Aldo Orvieto, stems from a personal itinerary where past and present, the physical and the metaphysical engage in dialogue, and where music and poetry confront history and microhistory. The foundation of the project is a fascination with the Botanical Garden of Padua-a jewel of shapes and colors, a Theater of wisdom and harmony masterfully preserved over time, which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. The CD brings together 6 Canzoni (Songs), each representing a step on a journey where music intertwines with the historical, human, and artistic adventure of an author (with texts by Ludovico Ariosto, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Emily Dickinson, Fernando Pessoa, and Federico Garcia Lorca). This allows listeners to relive four centuries of the Botanical Garden's history through music and song. Walking, listening, and observing become the three elements that accompany the birth and development of the Canzoni del giardino incantato. This album was born from the weaving together of different fields of knowledge, seeking a dialogue between music, poetry, and the historical, physical, and human landscape, centering on a specific geographical location and the surprising, fascinating uniqueness of it's history.