About the Duo
Described in Amadeus Magazine as “demonstrating great skill, affinity, and interpretative maturity”, Duo Crepuscolo is a violin-guitar duo (featuring both classical and electric guitar) based in New York City and Sicily, composed of American violinist Francesca Abusamra and Italian guitarist Giuseppe Buscemi. They met while both students at the Manhattan School of Music, and began playing together as a duo in 2023, with their initial concert series taking place in Sicily. Buscemi hails from Sicily, and Abusamra has Italian-American heritage, so they bonded over Italian culture and music.
The duo aims to bring attention to the repertoire for violin and guitar, as well as expand it, working with living composers to create new music. Many of the duo’s performances focus on Italian music, as they want to connect their two cultures through their art form, creating a bridge across the ocean between their two homes of New York City and Sicily.
Some of their past performances have included a series of concerts across Sicily, where they performed in historic locations from churches to the ruins of an old Norman castle. They have also given numerous performances in the United States focused on showcasing Italian music and culture, such as a recital at the Italian Institute of Culture in New York City, as well as a featured performance during Italian Cultural Day at the United Nations International School. There they were able to share a program of all-Italian music with the students, including both classical works, film music, and classic popular music.
Last concert season they premiered Dialogo a Due (Dialogue for Two) written for violin and electric guitar, dedicated to them by Italian composer Paolo Marchettini. They reprised this piece as featured performers at the Manhattan School of Music earlier this year. The duo is in the process of working with Marchettini to expand on this work and create an entire album for violin and electric guitar. They began the current concert season by giving the season's inaugural performance at the Chelsea Music Festival at AP Space Gallery in Chelsea, NYC.
What’s in a Name?
The name was inspired by a beautiful dusk sky Francesca and Giuseppe saw together one evening. The name also pays homage to Giuseppe’s Italian language.
Crepuscolo
noun (Italian) [kreˈpuskolo]
1. twilight, dusk
Meet Our Members
Francesca Abusamra
Violin
Based in New York City, Francesca Abusamra is a violinist dedicated to creating an engaging and accessible musical experience. She is passionate about chamber music, and is currently a member of Duo Crepuscolo, a violin-guitar duo that features both classical and electric guitar, and is focused on connecting Italian and American cultures, as well as creating new repertoire for the ensemble. She was also formerly a founding member of the Opus87 Piano Quartet.
Abusamra believes in the importance of working with living composers, regularly performing and premiering new works, many of them dedicated to her. She is also passionate about interdisciplinary performances; in collaboration with choreographer Allison Armstrong of Golden Hour Dance, she created a performance project where live solo violin interacted with dancers. She also participated in a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Gloria at Symphony Space, together with Dakshina Indian Dance Company. She also enjoys venturing outside of the classical realm, performing with artists such as indie band Japanese Breakfast’s frontwoman Michelle Zauner (with whom she performed at the New Yorker Festival, as well as the inaugural concert series at the Perlman Performing Arts Center at Ground Zero), and Nigerian rapper and singer Asake with the Red Bull Symphonic.
Ms. Abusamra has had the honor of sharing the stage with artists such as Lang Lang, Emmanuel Ax, and Leonard Slatkin. She regularly performs with various orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the NYC area, and performs in numerous notable concert venues across the city, such as Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Zankel Hall, and Weill Recital Hall, Lincoln Center’s Merkin Hall and Alice Tully Hall, the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, and Feinstein’s 54 Below. Originally a Michigan native, she has also performed in the Detroit Symphony’s Orchestra Hall, performing a double concerto alongside DSO Assistant Concertmaster Hai Xin Wu and chamber orchestra.
Abusamra is currently on violin faculty at multiple prestigious schools in New York City. She completed both her Master of Music and Bachelor of Music degrees at the Manhattan School of Music, studying with Laurie Carney and Peter Winograd, both of the American String Quartet. Her violin is Jonathon I. Price.
For more, please visit her website below.
Giuseppe Buscemi
Guitar
Italian guitarist Giuseppe Buscemi, Naxos artist and winner of international competitions, has performed concert tours throughout Europe and the USA, and has been invited by renowned concert associations and presenters to perform in notable concert halls, such as his debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. His repertoire ranges from the Baroque era to the latest contemporary works, both in solo and chamber music for classical and electric guitar.
As a versatile performer who feels extremely comfortable on electric guitar as well, he was invited to play both classical and electric guitar on the opera-cabaret “Only An Octave Apart”, produced by the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, starring Anthony Roth Costanzo and Justin Vivian Bond, and on GameOn!, a video-game concert produced by the New World Symphony Orchestra in Miami Beach, under the baton of the orchestrator and conductor Andy Brick.
Eager to explore and expand the possibilities of his instrument in solo as well as chamber music settings, he founded the violin-guitar duo Duo Crepuscolo. The duo explores the more classical repertoire for the ensemble, as well as commissioning and premiering new works. He has also performed with renowned musicians such as Gianni Bicchierini, Leonardo Augello, CY Leo, and the BlackBox Ensemble, and has premiered works by internationally acclaimed composers such as Reiko Füting, Carlo Galante, and Paolo Marchettini.
His fourth and latest CD, “Transcendence”, published in 2023, showcases a unique program of pieces arranged by Giuseppe for his harmonica-and-guitar duo with CY Leo. His third CD, “Italian Guitar Rarities”, was published by Naxos in 2022. The program is focused on the evolution of the Italian repertoire for classical guitar, from Baroque to contemporary music. All his albums have received high critical praise from music magazines, such as American Record Guide, Yorkshire Post, Guitare Classique, Gitarre & Laute, and SeiCorde, and have been broadcast on radio stations such as RAI Radio 3, Radio Vaticana, Emisora del Sur, and The Intimate Guitar.
Giuseppe is a faculty member of renowned music schools in Manhattan, and before moving to America taught for many years in Italian conservatories and music schools.
He is currently a candidate for the Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Manhattan School of Music in New York, where he also works as teaching assistant on the guitar faculty, and is a student of David Leisner. Giuseppe plays a Guido Di Lernia guitar.
For more, please visit his website below.