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Stresa Festival 2011-
Italy Version
This
year – 2011 - the Settimane Musicali di Stresa e
del Lago Maggiore (Stresa Music Festival) is
celebrating its 50th anniversary. For the
last five years it has been under the High Patronage of
the President of the Italian Republic. This year’s
program “prologue” consisted of three lively Spring
Concerts, boasting internationally known jazz
performers - Enrico Rava Tribe, Charlie Haden
Quartet West and the Al Di Meola New World
Sinfonia.
Then from 29 July to 5 August summer gets going with the
Meditations in music, a week offering 15th
and 16th century musical gems. The highlight – as in
past years – is J.S. Bach’s six Suites for solo
violoncello, performed in the Santa Caterina del Sasso
hermitage church, cut into the cliffs at Leggiuno; this
year’s soloist is the Lithuanian cellist David
Geringas. Music lovers will then be able to listen
to Hopkinson Smith playing the baroque guitar,
the Ensemble Cordia and De labyrintho.
The main body of the Festival program, under this year’s
theme of Travel Notes, spans a wide period, from
well-loved late baroque, classic and romantic pieces to
less-known composers. Of course, there will be Bach,
Vivaldi, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Donizetti, plus Chopin,
Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Rachmaninoff and
Shostakovich, all in the magic hands of outstanding
interpreters and orchestras, as befits this party for
the Festival’s half-century.
For the inaugural concert at the Palazzo dei Congressi
Gianandrea Noseda will conduct the Stresa
Festival Orchestra, performing the winning piece
from the Settimane Musicali di Stresa 2011 5th
International composition competition. The evening
includes Brahms’ First Symphony and Shostakovich’s
Concerto No. 1 for piano, trumpet and strings, with the
pianist Alexander Toradze.
On Sunday 28 August The Israel Philharmonic
Orchestra will be in Stresa, with Zubin Mehta,
its conductor and musical director for the last 30 years.
They too are celebrating their 50th anniversary this
year! The program includes music by Webern, Liszt and
Tchaikovsky.
On Tuesday 30 August comes the European tour Stresa stop
of the Filarmonica della Scala with Gianandrea
Noseda conducting. The evening offers Dvořák’s
Eighth Symphony, and Beethoven’s Concerto no. 1 for
piano, with the Norwegian Leif Ove Andsnes as
soloist.
The Festival closes on Sunday 4 September with a concert
by the Gewandhausorchester of Leipzig, conducted
by Riccardo Chailly; their program offers
Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 5 and two pieces by Beethoven
- the Coriolanus Overture, and Concerto
no. 3, with the Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires.
In between, on Thursday 25 August comes the semi-scenic
version of Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor,
performed by the Stresa Festival
Orchestra conducted by Gianandrea Noseda.
The exciting international vocal cast comprises
Elena Mosuc, Franco Vassallo, John Osborn, Alessandro
Liberatore, Orlin Anastassov, Arianna
Vendittelli and Luca Casalin, with the Ars
Cantica Choir under their choirmaster Marco
Berrini. The “sets” were prepared by the
Laboratorio di Scenotecnica, a
workshop held in May 2011 during the Accademia
Musicale di Stresa 2011 courses, under the
direction of Luca Tombolato.
The second Accademia course, a Master class in
Improvisation, will be jazz-based, run by
Enrico Pieranunzi at the end of August. The most
outstanding students will give a final concert on 2
September, with the Enrico Pieranunzi Trio.
The calendar is completed with several international
names. Isabelle Faust will play Bach’s Sonate and
partite for violin solo on Saturday 27 August;
then comes the Macedonian pianist Simon Trpcescki,
on 29 August, followed by Pavel Berman,
Enrico Dindo and Alexander Romanovsky on 1
September. Other top-notch ensembles include London
Brass on 22 August, Il Suonar Parlante with
Vittorio Ghielmi on 23 August), Apollon
Musagète Quartett on 26 August, and the Akademie
für Alte Musik Berlin on 3 September.
On 23 July there will be a special band concert to mark
150 years of Italian unity, in the Palazzo dei
Congressi at Stresa. All the local authorities will be
represented.
The Festival enjoys some exceptional venues around Lake
Maggiore. There is the Hermitage of Santa Caterina del
Sasso, perched high on the cliffs looking out over the
lake, the magnificent Tapestry Hall - the Salone
degli Arazzi – in the Borromeo Palace on the Isola
Bella; other treasures are the Loggia del Cashmere,
set in the splendid garden of the Isola Madre, the Rocca
Borromeo fortress at Angera, the Visconteo Castle in
Vogogna, the monumental church of Madonna di Campagna in
Verbania, the richly frescoed Chiesa Vecchia in
Belgirate, and Villa Ponti in Arona. |
Booking Real Time Hotel in
Stresa
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