Stresa Festival 2011 - Cinema & Musica a Stresa

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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 50^th 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 5^th 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.

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