(by Luciano Fioramonti) A week of great concerts among the architectural and natural wonders of Salento, twelve events, the first performance of ”La Romanza dell’ Ulivo’ by Oscar winner Nicola Piovani, the complete Dvořák trios in 120 years since his death, a prestigious team of Italian and foreign soloists and ensembles. Classiche Forme, the international Chamber Music Festival founded by Beatrice Rana eight years ago, returns to illuminate Lecce from 14 to 21 July and the places dear to the Apulian pianist, counted among the world‘s keyboard stars. The event will offer eight evenings with the greats of the chamber music scene, from the inaugural concert in the cloister of the Rectorate of Lecce with the Paganini prize-winning violinist Sayaka Shoji and the Austro-Iranian cellist Kian Soltani, to the evening of 17 July with the child prodigy pianist Alexander Malofeev, the cellist Aleksey Shadrin, the violinist Liya Petrova and Giuseppe Russo Rossi on viola, at the concert on the 18th by Ludovica Rana (cello), Georgy Kovakev (viola) and Nemjamin Grosvernor (piano), at the final marathon on July 21st with a great tribute to France with Beatrice Rana and Massimo Spada on the piano, the Modigliani Quartet, Grosvenor and Shoji. Also on stage are Giorgio Magistroni, Alessandro Quarta, Giuseppe Magagnino, I Solisti Filarmonici Italiani, alongside young talents from the Stauffer Academy of Cremona, the Pinerolo School of Music and the Avos Project of Rome.
“Classiche Forme – says Beatrice Rana – is for me a treasure chest in which ideas, visions, figures of musicians, musical programs and experiments come together in a single project and draw a path that amazes even me every year. ‘The hands of Salento’ it is the image of this eighth edition: the hands of the musicians who interpret and give life to the immense masterpieces of the past and of our contemporaneity; the hands of the artisans who chiseled the white Lecce stone making it unique in Italian baroque”. July in Lecce preview preview with the Concert for the city in the Belloluogo Park of Lecce where the Classiche Forme botanical oasis born two years ago grows. The ”out of town” events will involve the Masseria Le Stanzìe of Supersano, the Castello Volante of Corigliano d’Otranto and the Le Costantine Foundation in Casamassella, the latter with the performance of the composition for string quintet and piano signed by Piovani, title of the 2024 Festival Commission. ”I’m writing it, and quoting Verdi for his Ballo in Maschera, ‘I hope it turns out well’. I was inspired by a farmer who, when I was a child, told me that whoever plants an olive tree will not enjoy it but his children and those who come after will. An antidote to the practical utilitarianism that characterizes our culture”. The Festival is, in fact, also attention to the environment with the reforestation of olive trees, after the destruction of 30 million trees in the region, at Le Costantine with the Sylva Foundation. The Undersecretary of Culture Gianmarco Mazzi said that he will be in Lecce for the concerts of Beatrice Rana and Piovani, ”who represent the greatness and genius of Italian talent” and expressed admiration for the inner strength of the Salento pianist who ”loves his land and gives back by engaging in a stable project like this”. ”You have to want to get there in Salento – concluded the young musician – but it is a generous land that surprises and conquers the heart and the throat. For a week the foreign artists who participate will bring it closer to Europe”.
breaking latest news © Copyright ANSA