Marco Toso Borella
THE ARTIST
Marco Toso Borella is a 360 ° Venetian artist: painter, writer, musician and historical researcher.
He was born and still lives in Murano.
He is a Murano glass painter by profession in the continuity of ancient family traditions (more than 6 generations).
He is a composer, arranger, singer, director of the largest choir in Italy (and in Europe) with more than 300 elements.
He is a writer of historical essays and novels.
as a PAINTER:
His works are kept in private collections all over the world. He is the last living interpreter of an ancient artistic technique (sgraffito on gold), for which he is mentioned in the publication Artists Techniques and Materials published in 2006 by The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
Since November 2016, his Glass Via Crucis has been installed in the Basilica of Santi Maria e Donato in Murano, a unique work in the world composed of 15 glass icons decorated with graffiti on gold leaf and enamels depicting the 14 traditional stations of the Via Crucis plus a fifteenth depicting the Resurrection. The images of the glass Via Crucis were chosen by the Patriarch of Venice Francesco Moraglia to illustrate his publication “Via Crucis. The wisdom of the cross “(ed. Marcianum Press, 2019).
For the Vetreria Artistica Mazzega, commissioned by a Japanese private individual, he is creating a majestic work, the Kansai Project, consisting of 20 Murano glass plates, measuring 75 cm. x 50 cm., decorated according to the ancient technique of “sgraffito” on gold leaf, and which faithfully reproduce an ancient Japanese work of the tenth century inspired by the “History of the bamboo cutter”, considered the oldest Japanese fairy tale.
as a WRITER (books and theatre):
As a writer and historical researcher, he has published historical essays, short stories and novels accompanying them with the specially created graphic part.
Among his most appreciated creations there are two narrative works: the collection of short stories inspired by the world of chess “Padroni e pedine” Ed. Supernova 2005, from which a theatrical show was taken in which the author interprets the various stories that make up the work, and the very successful uchronic novel “Venezia impossibile”, Ed. Supernova 2003, now in its third reprint, translated into English and also transposed into a film version in the homonymous film “Venezia Impossibile” presented as part of the Venice International Film Festival in 2013.
In 2020 he published “#FASEZERO. The whole truth about Venice in nine chapters” (edition Supernova), a provocative and disenchanted political pamphlet on post-covid Venice.
as a MUSICIAN:
He sang with numerous polyphonic ensembles and currently conducts the two most famous choral ensembles in the Venetian territory: the “Vocal Skyline” and the “Big Vocal Orchestra”, the latter being the largest vocal orchestra in Europe with over 300 elements, for which he takes care not only of the direction but also of the vocal arrangements and the choreographies.
Both formations have performed in the most prestigious theaters and churches of the Veneto, proposing shows of voices, music, lights and movements that regularly record a full house. Among all, worthy of note is the concert-show with over 5,000 people in which the 300 voices of the Big Vocal Orchestra performed in Piazza San Marco, overlooking the Loggia and the portico of the Doge’s Palace (28 December 2019). On that occasion, the musical piece “Mermaids” inspired by the sound of sirens that announced the imminent arrival of “high water” in the city of Venice was performed, in homage to the city of Venice hit by the exceptional tide of 12 November.
During the spring 2020 lockdown he created with the Vocal Skyline an interpretation of the song “Do you hear the people sing” taken from the musical “Les Miserables”, assembling the voices of the choristers who sang each from their own home and offering a tribute to the city of Venice.
