“Smash the tube – enjoy the music!” is the title of Emilia Romagna Festival 2019 with 41 events from 6 July to 7 September, located among the architectural and landscape wonders of the region.
Distributed this year in 5 provinces – Bologna, Modena, Ferrara, Ravenna, Forlì-Cesena – the Festival will alternate great interpreters of international music, promising young artists, impressive symphony orchestras and valuable chamber music formations, the first absolute performances by contemporary authors, pieces from the classical and jazz repertoire.
The opening concert will be in Forlì at the Church of San Giacomo in San Domenico with Uto Ughi who will perform together with the South Korean Seongnam Philharmonic Orchestra and its conductor Nanse Gum. The closing concert is dedicated to the Grande Lirica in the Villa La Babina in Sasso Morelli, with two international stars, the soprano Cinzia Forte and the baritone Giovanni Meoni, accompanied at the piano by Marco Scolastra.
This year, Emilia Romagna Festival will present a mixture of styles and sounds with particular attention to the contaminations between Jazz, Classical and rhythms born from the folk traditions of the whole world. On 14 July in the Arena delle balle di paglia in Cotignola with the writer Ermanno Cavazzoni accompanied by the Extraliscio; on 17 July at the Rocca Sforzesca in Imola with Richard Galliano together with the Quintet of I Solisti Aquilani and Massimo Mercelli on the flute; on 27 July at the Trepponti di Comacchio, the Grupo Compay Segundo de Buena Vista Social Club with “La Leyenda del Chan Chan”; 7 August in Mordano, the versatile Luisa Cottifogli with Rumì; August 9 in Cesenatico Noa with “Letters to Bach”; on 10 August in the Cortile of the Pomposa Abbey in Codigoro Peppe Servillo with the Solis String Quartet: a show about the masterpieces of the Neapolitan song; on 11 August, at the Teatro tra i Vigneti of the Agriturismo Le Siepi in San Giovanni in Fontanelice, the piano solo of Enrico Pieranunzi with “Unlimited”.
To open the Festival will be Uto Ughi, who will receive, Sunday 7 July, the X ERF career award in the evocative location of Palazzo Fantini in Tredozio. On 20 July at the Abbey of Pomposa in Codigoro the iranian pianist Ramin Bahrami with the Camerata Ducale Orchestra, Guido Rimonda on the violin and Cristian Lombardi, and on 7 September Ramin Bahrami in Vignola, in piano solo, with the famous Goldberg Variations. The double date with the Georgian Chamber Orchestra Ingolstadt conducted by Ruben Gazarian, at Imola on 31 July and at Forlì on 1 August; on August 29 in Forlì, in collaboration with the 900fest of Forlì and as a preview of the 2019 edition, the Spanish group Plural Ensemble with Massimo Mercelli with an interesting excursion from the ‘900 to the present day music; and in September (the 5th or 6th) in Forlì the Singapore Chinese Orchestra conducted by Tsung Ye in a concert of all first Italian performances.
Emilia Romagna Festival has always promoted young talents, collaborating with some of the best international Music Competitions and hosting the winners every year. For the section Primo Premio!: the violinist Annastella Gibboni and the cellist Luca Giovannini, winners of the XXI Music Review of the Best Graduates of the Conservatories of Italy of Castrocaro Terme and Terra del Sole; the Duo Ebano, winner of the First Prize ex aequo at Salieri-Zinetti 2018; the Callisto Quartet string quartet, residence quartet at the Festival with four concerts, winner of the First Prize and Gold Medal at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition 2018; the Marimbazzi Duo, formed by two young and talented Polish percussionists, winners of the First Prize ex aequo at Salieri-Zinetti 2018; the young pianist Mariia Iudenko, winner of the First Prize at the 8th Andrea Baldi International Piano Competition 2018; and finally the violinist Sara Pastine and the pianist Giulia Contaldo, winners of the 2017 Edition of the International Chamber Music Competition “Massimiliano Antonelli” of Latina. Among the other new talents of this edition, the Young Pan-European Orchestra composed by students from 10 European countries, who will perform as part of the “Young Mediterranean Music Festival” IV edition organized by No.Vi.Art Arti per la nonviolenza Forlì-Cesena.
The complete programme with the 41 concerts is available HERE