* Festival
Eight evenings of great music among "The Hands of Salento"
Classiche Forme has since its inception been a festival set in art and nature with a precise and unmistakable identity, certainly among the most important cultural outreach initiatives in Europe for revitalizing the perception of chamber music in the imagination of young people and mainstream audiences.
The International Chamber Music Festival founded and directed by pianist Beatrice Rana returns to Salento, for its eighth edition, July 14-21, 2024: bringing great music to places of art and the Salento countryside, hosting world-renowned soloists, always aiming to create opportunities that break down the barriers between stage and audience. And this year with an extra mission: to plant trees in territories devastated by the Xylella fastidiosa bacteria together with Sylva Foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to environmental regeneration.
This eighth edition is inspired by "The Hands of Salento". At a time when it seems that the only viable way to open up to the future is the development and deepening of the potential of artificial intelligence, "hands" and their great creative power can be the declination of that craft intelligence that, together with the emotional one, will give man the possibility to give substance to his ideas and dreams and to realize them in a unique and extraordinary way says Beatrice Rana
The program
The Concert for the City, July 13rd, at Belloluogo Park in Lecce, is the Festival Preview. It is followed by eight evenings in iconic venues in the capital and three other Salento municipalities, namely Masseria Le Stanzìe in Supersano, the Flying Castle in Corigliano d'Otranto and Fondazione Le Costantine in Casamassella (Ugento area), the latter for the special evening that will feature, among other things, the premiere performance of La romanza dell'ulivo, a title from the Classiche Forme 2024 Commission signed by Oscar winner Nicola Piovani.
The festival's layout includes pieces that are part of the greatest chamber music tradition, sonatas, trios, famous quartets, juxtaposed with interesting transcriptions, rarely performed, such as Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony transcribed for string sextet.
Particularly characterizing this edition is the presentation of all the trios with piano by Antonin Dvořák, which will be heard both in the interpretation of acclaimed artists, such as Sayaka Shoji, Kian Soltani and Rana herself, and in that of young talents from some of the most important music academies of advance education.
An all-Viennese classical-inspired program, then, for the Modigliani Quartet concert, featuring Mozart's "Milanese" Quartet and Beethoven's "Razumowsky" Quartet Op. 59 No. 1.
Prominent, finally, for the Final Marathon, is an all-French program titled, precisely, Hommage à la France in which alongside piano pieces for 4 hands by Fauré and Ravel, Chausson's Concerto in D major for violin, piano and string quartet, Op. 21 and Franck's famous Quintet in F minor for piano and strings will be featured.
