Venice, 5th June 2008
77 composers and 34 concerts performed by 13 leading ensembles –instrumental and vocal– 3 orchestras, 8 soloists, and meetings, seminars, workshops to form a rich, packed programme for the 52nd International Festival of Contemporary Music, to be held in Venice between the 2nd and 18th October.
Roots / Future, the title chosen for the Festival by the new director, Luca Francesconi, is the underlying theme of the “tale” that unfolds through the concerts planned. In each of them, the roots co-exist with the future: young composers or from the mid-generation, whether newcomers or established, appear alongside some great masters who have left their mark on 20th-century music and beyond, in a series of references multiplying the meanings and offering new significance to the works presented.
For Francesconi, Roots / Future means “reflecting about that which has left a trace, starting with the young who have noted and been inspired by it and have nourished our possible future, linking up in this process also with the tradition of Venice and the Biennale”.
The opening concert on 2nd October places Igor Stravinsky and Luigi Nono –both of whom have played a crucial role in the history of music and a fundamental one in Venice and the Biennale– appear alongside Juste Janulyte and Mirjam Tally, fresh exponents from the international scene.
The concert opens the Festival with the same Canticum Sacrum ad honorem Sancti Marci nominis that Stravinsky dedicated to the city and which he conducted in 1956 with the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice, present once more with Eliahu Inbal on the podium.
Iannis Xenakis, Helmut Lachenmann, and Michele dall’Ongaro, accompanied again by Stravinsky, this time with the Variations dedicated to Aldous Huxley opening and closing the evening, are the protagonists of the concert performed by the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai conducted by Arturo Tamayo (3rd October, Teatro alle Tese). For the second concert played by the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice, the work of the great Polish composer, Witold Lutoslawski, is present together with works by Azio Corghi, Fabio Vacchi and Magnus Lindberg (5th October, Teatro La Fenice). The Orchestra dell’Arena di Verona will also be present at the Festival under the baton of Renato Rivolta with works by Alessandro Solbiati, Kaija Saariaho, Hilda Paredes and Giacomo Manzoni, Golden lion for lifetime achievement in the last edition of the Festival (10th October, Teatro alle Tese). A glimpse of modern British music is offered by the London Sinfonietta conducted by Diego Masson, with compositions by Oliver Knussen, Luke Bedford, Julian Anderson, and a study of Continental influences by the work of the great Gérard Grisey (4th October, Teatro La Fenice).
And it is to Gérard Grisey –on the 10th anniversary of his death– and to Karlheinz Stockhausen –who this year would have celebrated his 80th birthday– but also to Luciano Berio, who died too soon, that the festival pays homage. The many performances of these composers’ music, which will appear at intervals throughout the programme, highlight the force of their works and their influence on the writing of subsequent generations, as well as their persistent appeal to a public of varying origins.
The performance of Michaels Reise um die Erde –the second act from Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Thursday from Light– will represent one of the main features of the Festival. The fruitful and lively material by one of the composers to have left the most profound marks on all of music –academic and other– is brought to life by the scenic, visionary and radical language of the Catalan company, La Fura dels Baus, with the assistance of the musikFabrik ensemble (7th October, Teatro alle Tese).
