The biggest names in classical music together with young international stars meet in Castelnuovo Garfagnana from June 22nd to July 8th 2017 for the International Academy of Music Festival.
There will be twenty concerts by some of the best international artists in the International Academy of Music Festival, an event that, since 2003, brings to the Serchio Valley some of the best chamber music interpreters and is now in its sixteenth year.
The event, sponsored by the Tuscany Region and part of the “La Toscana dei Festival” regional project, attracts yearly around two hundred musicians from all over the world to entertain Castelnuovo and the Serchio Valley, thanks to the organization of Castelnuovo di Garfagnana’s Civic School of Music.
OPENING JAZZ CONCERT
On Friday, June 22, the festival opens with a jazz session at 9.30 pm in Piazza Umberto I (Castelnuovo Garfagnana) with the Fresu-Bonaventura duo, a special event sponsored by Banca Mediolanum. It’s a musical dialogue with wind and brass instruments permeated by Mediterranean lyricism. Paolo Fresu and Daniele Di Bonaventura, together with the Filetta choir of the successful “Mistico Mediterraneo” project with the album of the same name, recently published by the prestigious ECM label, are here as a more intimate duo. Attracted by ethnic, classical and electronic music, the two jazz musicians present a sort of poetic distillation of the project that has long characterized their increasingly frequent performances. The duo recorded a new CD in the spring of 2015
It’s going to be a very lively concert that that fully reflects all aspects of the contemporary music scene.
Further info on the website: www.iamitalia.com
JAZZ QUARTET WITH PIERO GADDI AND FABRIZIO DESIDERI
On Friday June 29th Piero Gaddi and Fabrizio Desideri perform in a completely new project. They will inaugurate their collaboration with two professionals, percussionist Francesco Petreni and double-bass player Filippo Pedol, and mark the return of the International Academy of Music Festival to the beautiful ambience of Castiglione di Garfagnana. The Desideri-Gaddi quartet will present its own pieces: a jazz that knows how to move between spontaneous enjoyment and an always open frontier of research and experimentation.
Further information on the website: www.iamitalia.com
PORGY & BESS IN GIL EVANS’ VERSION
On Saturday 30 June, in the elegant setting of Piazza Umberto I of Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, a highly evocative opera, ‘Porgy & Bess’, will be performed.
George Gershwin’s ‘Porgy & Bess’, is performed in the fascinating version by Gil Evans. Against the unique backdrop of the Rocca Ariostesca castle, the wind and brass orchestra of the Puccini Conservatory of La Spezia will give the public one of the twentieth century’s finest as well as one of its best known works. Conducted by Alessandro Fabbri, the performers will play immortal melodies like ‘Summertime’ and there’s a great trumpeter Manolo Nardi in an evening of great music.