Ravenna Festival

Il primo appuntamento di Ravenna Festival in quest’anno dedicato all’Africa e alla fiaba, ha il carattere di un incontro festoso fra giovani ravennati e africani nel cuore della città con uno spazio favoloso per i bambini. Formazioni musicali di alcune scuole cittadine si alterneranno a un gruppo acrobatico di Nairobi. Il dialogo e l’intesa sono immediati quando giovani appartenenti a diverse culture si esprimono attraverso il linguaggio del corpo e dell’arte.

Nafsi Africa (in swahili Anima dell’Africa) è un gruppo di giovani acrobati provenenti da Kibera, una delle più grandi e degradate baraccopoli
africane. La loro attività inizia al Kivuli Center fondato da Padre Kizito alle porte di Nairobi. Lì è iniziato il loro percorso di riscatto da ragazzi di
strada ad acrobati professionisti.

Waiting for the wind, which caresses and moves all things: treetops and thoughts, water surfaces and emotions, clouds and the most hidden feelings. Listening to the “sound of the wind” from the chords of an Aeolian harp, trying to find a clearer, more transparent dimension, to sweep away the too many aerials crowding the skies of our cities, to wipe away the too many poles blocking the horizon as well as our hearts. Casting our glances further and further, in search for a note, a resonance, a breath that suddenly discloses the horizon bathing everything in its natural shining light. The landscape’s sensible audible; “Nature itself is an Aeolian harp, it is a musical instrument whose sounds are the keys to the higher strings within our own selves”.

The author, together with other speakers, will illustrate the theoretical and practical aspects of the Method and of Tititom, its didactic tool. This innovative learning system gives rapid access to the knowledge and practice of rhythm, duration, and basic music notation. It is ideal for basic schooling (students aged 4-14), for music and dance teachers, and it is very useful for musicians and amateurs of all ages. The system was also successfully tested on kids with sensory disorders or learning disabilities (deafness, dyslexia or psychomotor difficulties). The Method is markedly multi-disciplinary. Several experts in various professions will expound on their case studies and applications of the Method.

June, the 6th - 5 pm
Presentation Sala Corelli, Teatro Alighieri

7-10 and 13-15 june
Music workshop Scuola primaria statale “Filippo Mordani”

Info and workshop reservations:
www.tititom.com

“What Beethoven thinks of his Pastoral will never be known: uncommonly enough, in this symphony he does not think; he is rather content with observing” (Alberto Savinio). Like the audience, that, confronting the uniqueness of this score, keeps on “observing” and sometimes manages to catch a glimpse of the essence of music. Thus, Abbado’s choice of the Pastoral for his return to the Festival is no surprise. The conductor, a supporter of young talent for more than thirty years, will lead “his” own Mozart Orchestra. Alongside Beethoven’s masterpiece, they will propose the exuberant genius of young Mozart: his first great symphony, the loud episode of “alla turca” music of his Violin concerto, and the impetus of his Oboe concerto, performed by undisputedly talented interpreters.

http://www.orchestramozart.com

After the unforgettable success of Swan Lake and Dorian Gray, British choreographer and director Matthew Bourne returns with an extremely imaginative show that blends the tradition of musical theatre with modern ballet to tell another unique and touching tale: it is a passionate tribute to London, devastated by bombs during the “Blitz”, in World War ii. A sumptuous set design turning from fairy- like to dark and tragic; breathtaking lighting design and scene changes; Prokofiev’s powerful score and references from great British and Hollywood’s films from the ’40s: all this is bound to turn this ingenious re-telling of the most popular fairy tale into one of the most exciting choreographic creations of our times.

www.new-adventures.net/productions/cinderella

This is more than a concert: it is a true journey of exploration among unknown musical worlds, with three exceptional and indomitable “guides”. Percussionist Trilok Gurtu, a previous collaborator of Joe Zawinul, Jan Garbarek, Don Cherry, Bill Evans, Pharoah Sanders and Dave Holland, fuses Western and Indian techniques in an unmistakable style and sound. A winning mix of jazz, Cuban and world music with strong African roots makes of Omar Sosa the new extraordinary protagonist of contemporary piano playing. Paolo Fresu, a leading representative of Italian jazz, has performed worldwide with the most important Afro- American musicians of the latest thirty years. The unique sound of his trumpet is now acknowledged as one of the most distinctive on the modern jazz scene.

http://www.paolofresu.it/
http://www.omarsosa.com/
http://www.trilokgurtu.net/

CorpOmbra was recently born in Indonesia, where Artemis Danza were Resident Company in 2010, within the project Artemis Meets Other Cultures. This experience taught Artemis the gestural codes of ancient Wayang Orang (Javanese dance theatre), re- read by director and choreographer Monica Casadei in a creation for six bodies, six outlines and... shadows which owes much to the skilful complicity of Fabrizio Montecchi from Teatro Gioco Vita. Silhouettes from Indonesian Ramayana (one of the greatest poems of Hindu mythology) intertwine with the shadows of the bodies interacting with the bodies of dancers who, in turn, incarnate the traditional characters and then turn to the unveiled reality of the contemporary gesture, enriched by the echoes of a fascinating country and its seductive imagery.

http://www.artemisdanza.com

Nella suggestiva cornice del Vecchio tiro a segno, sotto la grande aquila scura che ha visto allenarsi campioni olimpici, una conferenza spettacolo sarà dedicata al celebre viaggiatore ravennate che nell’800 dedicò la sua vita all’esplorazione dell’Africa combattendo i mercanti di schiavi. Così aprì la strada agli studi antropologici in Italia su cui si innestarono le aspirazioni coloniali del successivo periodo fascista.

Entity springs from Wayne McGregor’s ongoing interest in neuroscience. One of the most inventive contemporary English choreographers, McGregor investigates the relationship between brain and body, and the way the brain’s signals transmute into movement. Entity is an unrepeatable mix of science, cybernetics and modern dance, where an enveloping set of LED lights forms a hypnotic background to the dancers’ mathematically precise movements, powered by the suggestive, thudding soundscape created by Jon Hopkins and Joby Talbot. Besides being the founder of Random Dance, Wayne McGregor is the youngest ever appointed Resident Choreographer of legendary Royal Ballet, and also advises in theatre and film, as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

http://www.randomdance.org/

Platero y yo è una raccolta di poemetti in prosa scritti nel 1914 da Juan Ramón Jiménez, poeta premiato con il Nobel per la letteratura nel 1956, in cui si descrivono le vicende vissute da un poeta misantropo a fianco del proprio asinello Platero. Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco scelse 28 dei 138 quadri del poema di Jiménez creando una delle opere più originali della letteratura chitarristica.

A narrative writing lab venturing into the heart of Pink Floyd’s music; an endless supply of documents and quotations; an imaginary dialogue and the story of a myth. This is Michele Mari’s novel, Floyd Red, reaching the stage as a dark tale in a virtuoso performance by Rita Marcotulli and her group, with the extraordinary voice of former Almamegretta front man, Raiz. The writer will drag the audience into a vortex of the most psychedelic and visionary rock, with a singular procession of characters who somehow happened to meet Syd Barrett, or maybe only tangentially had something to do with Pink Floyd: real and fictional people, the songs’ protagonists or figures from the many documentary films on the group.

A masterpiece of Hebrew poetry, the Song of Songs is a dialogue in verse between a husband and his wife, rich in tender and sensual imagery but with an intimately spiritual character. In the most common symbolic-allegorical interpretation, the two lovers are Christ and the Church, but the wife is often identified with Mary. Most of the musical production based on verses from the Song of Songs relies on this interpretation, and dates back to the xv century. The Bologna Manuscript Q15 and other sources of the same period include several motets by French Flemish and English authors. Between the xv and the xvi centuries a real musical tradition was born which reached its highest peaks with Isaac, Mouton, Brumel e Clemens non Papa.

An unsolvable conflict seems to arise between the theme of the fairy tale and the Sunday liturgies the Festival traditionally proposes. How can we reconcile the world of fancy and imagination with the truths of faith proclaimed by the liturgies, which are far from being fairy tales? “Let children come to me” said Jesus, who loved to address the crowds in parables: His truth was not a doctrine to be brandished, but rather a mystery to be unveiled through the eyes of the simple at heart. This year’s four liturgies will be marked by simplicity: in the children voices of the Coro Farnesiano from Piacenza, in the Alpine sounds evoked by the choir of Santa Lucia di Magras, in the traditional folk songs of Coro Santa Veronica, and in the African rhythms and melodies the kids of Father Kizito will bring us from Nairobi.

La Società dei Canterini Romagnoli festeggia quest’anno il 50° anniversario della sua fondazione: oggi come allora, ha lo scopo di raccogliere, mantenere e tramandare il folklore romagnolo. Il gruppo corale, composto da 6 sezioni miste per un totale di 41 canterini, ha eseguito concerti in Italia e all'estero, realizzato incisioni discografiche partecipando a spettacoli radiofonici e televisivi anche a carattere nazionale.

A carpet, three actors and some drums: European theatres can become an African courtyard, and an African courtyard can become an Italian theatre. People
of various origins confront one another in the simplest and most immediate language, the language of folklore, staging tales from ancient traditions. This is why Mandiaye N’Diaye decided to re-propose a historical and successful work by Teatro delle Albe, Nessuno può coprire l’ombra, almost twenty years after its debut on
the international scene, with the young actors of Takku Ligey Théâtre. This mixture of traditional Senegalese tales mingles narration with dance and percussions to tell the adventures of Lek-the-Hare and Buki- the-Hyena, two ancient archetypes from the wolof fairy tale tradition.

http://www.teatrodellealbe.com/index2.htm

“The secret of Ariosto’s octave lies in its following the rhythm of speech, in the abundance of the so-called inessential accessories of language, and in the sharpness of punchlines. But this colloquial register is just one of the registers he uses, ranging from lyric to tragic to gnomic, which can all coexist within the same strophe”.ThesewerethewordsCalvino used to describe the octaves of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. No wonder this poem had such luck with madrigalists: all major Italian and Flemish composers of the time plundered his verses and built their complicated polyphonic structures on them. Compagnia del Madrigale now offers a selection of these scores, in a revival of Ariosto’s great poem enriched with the emotion of xvi century polyphony.

l ricordo pubblico della contessa Augusta Rasponi del Sale, in arte Gugù, si è andato sbiadendo in città. Per molti è solo il nome di una strada. L’ultima discendente di una delle più nobili famiglie ravennati che ha dedicato tutta la sua esistenza all’infanzia destinando il suo cospicuo patrimonio ai bambini bisognosi, è stata di fatto una delle più celebri illustratrici per ragazzi.

Le compagnia di burattinai cervese Arrivano dal Mare! e quella iraniana Apple Tree, composta dalle sorelle Mirzahoseini, introducono il loro spettacolo che va in scena il giorno dopo “Fiabe e Musiche d’Oriente – La notte che il fulesta di Romagna incontrò Mobarak e Pulcinella in Persia”, storie provenienti da mondi lontani, dal sapore antico ed esotico, accompagnate da strumenti tradizionali.

Founded in 1978, Nederlands Dans Theater II currently consists of 16 young dancers from all four corners of the world, and can boast a thirty-year experience and international renown. Three creations are staged here: Sleepless, Gods and Dogs and Minus 16. The first is an intense meditation on the relationship between body movement and the impulses of the soul, while the second shows the narrow dividing line between normality and madness. Both creations
are choreographed by Jiˇrí Kylián, one of the top choreographers working today, whose name is inseparable from NDT. The last sensual and unconventional piece is a sort of compilation of cha-cha, mambo and traditional Israeli music by Ohad Naharin, a dancer and choreographer from Kibbutz Mizra and the artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company.

http://www.ndt.nl/

Several scholars and researchers set the cradle of the worldwide patrimony of fairy tales at the centre of the Asian continent. That corner of the world undoubtedly gave us some of the oldest and richest narratives, and is still extremely rich in extraordinary techniques and interpreters. Tonight’s
event is a precious occasion for getting in touch with this Arabian-Nights-world in the company of a true fulesta, the old- time wandering storyteller of Romagna. Two theatre companies, Arrivano Dal Mare! from nearby Cervia, and Apple Tree, composed by the four Iranian Mirzahoseini sisters, will alternately narrate their own fantastic ancient and exotic stories, sharing some common elements. They will be accompanied by traditional strings and percussions, and by an accordion.

http://www.arrivanodalmare.it/

Il Quartetto Atem nasce nel 2005 ed è considerato uno dei più interessanti quartetti di sassofoni anche per la particolarità dei progetti in cui affianca sperimentazione, repertorio classico e prime esecuzioni. Gli Atem si sono esibiti presso le più importanti stagioni concertistiche italiane ed internazionali e collaborano con artisti del calibro di Javier Girotto con il quale hanno recentemente inciso il CD Suix.

This performance is a multimedia re- interpretation of the rules of proportion and harmony set down by Luca Pacioli in his De divina proportione, a cornerstone of Renaissance philosophic and cosmologic speculation. The performance will include some unpublished early xv scores, the electro-acoustic transposition of the five regular solids, some improvisations on the elements performed on ancient instruments, a holographic video installation generated by the dancers and a 3D space for the reproduction of sound. These elements will recreate the Renaissance concepts onstage, with an unprecedented contribution from software innovation and electro- acoustic composition. This work is meant as an ideal meeting point of xv century and contemporary cultures.

http://www.bellagerit.it/

http://www.de-divina-proportione.it

http://www.hevelius.it/webzine/leggi.php?codice=245

Il ravennate Matteo Ramon Arevalos si avvicina alla musica a sei anni appassionandosi ben presto al pianoforte e alla composizione. Insieme all’artista visiva Chiara Zenzani, ha creato uno spettacolo che coinvolge musica, testo, pittura e scultura ispirandosi al tema della favola e alla figura di Tulugaak, il creatore della luce nella mitologia del popolo eschimese Inuit.

Age-old submerged boundaries, contested by sand and water, on winding paths where walking Internauts will meet their “guides”: histories, nature, sounds. Paths marked by steps, on the trail of Giuseppe Garibaldi, within the very same landscape that served as a tragic background to life and death. Invisible paths of ancient waters on the islet of Perea, from the “locus loci” of dry lands to the myth of Phaethon. And from here, walking, to the river, to the remote ferry waiting for solitary wanderers in search of a wooden fish, the same fish that, in an ancient tale, had gone down the Po river... Wind harmonies and air boundaries between dark waters, where “dappled” flights of flamingos above straight banks trace sound scores for singers. Step after step, food for mind and body, wanderers at the court of the memory of places.

http://www.trailromagna.eu/

Un frutto assai particolare, gustoso da ascoltare, sarà presentato al Centro Commerciale ESP. Mapo Salato è infatti il titolo dell'ultimo CD dei Minor Swing Quintet dall'intenso sapore manouche che i 5 musicisti bolognesi proporranno in anteprima nei padiglioni del centro commerciale eseguendo le loro musiche dal vivo.

Furtwängler, Toscanini, Karajan, Klemperer, Muti, Sinopoli: the reputation of Philharmonia Orchestra has grown under the batons of such great masters. Salonen has been their leader since 2008, conjugating the expressive force of the conductor’s gesture to the composer’s analytic lucidity. For this Ravenna debut, the Finnish conductor’s passion and energy will be reflected in the absolute spontaneity of Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky, whose art, in Debussy’s words, “resembles the art of an inquiring savage discovering music step by step through his emotions”. The same can be expected from the spasmodic research of unexplored worlds of Bartók’s American Concerto for Orchestra, and from the sharp dramatic power of Mozart’s concert.

http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/

E’ il Cappuccetto Rosso nella sua versione più conosciuta, quella in cui nonna e nipote, dopo essere state mangiate dal lupo, vengono salvate dal provvidenziale cacciatore. Ma è solo il punto di partenza di un lavoro in cui, assieme alla ricerca sul linguaggio della favola, si approfondiscono nuove tecniche di animazione.

To celebrate Gustav Mahler’s death centenary, Kent Nagano will conduct what is probably the most paradoxical symphony of a composer who is never performed enough. Symphony No. 7 (1905) has none of the orchestral gigantism of so many Mahler works, but is a summa of the composer’s poetics: its five movements (a central Scherzo, two Nachtmusiken, and an initial and final Allegro), are perfectly symmetrical and imbued with “the sounds of Nature”, echoes of funeral marches, learned references to Wagner’s Meistersinger or Amami Alfredo as well as hints to folk or children melodies. The symphony is scored for an orchestra including such unconventional instruments as a guitar or a mandolin, and alternates surges of dense sound to moments of sublime rarefaction.

http://www.mphil.de/

An unsolvable conflict seems to arise between the theme of the fairy tale and the Sunday liturgies the Festival traditionally proposes. How can we reconcile the world of fancy and imagination with the truths of faith proclaimed by the liturgies, which are far from being fairy tales? “Let children come to me” said Jesus, who loved to address the crowds in parables: His truth was not a doctrine to be brandished, but rather a mystery to be unveiled through the eyes of the simple at heart. This year’s four liturgies will be marked by simplicity: in the children voices of the Coro Farnesiano from Piacenza, in the Alpine sounds evoked by the choir of Santa Lucia di Magras, in the traditional folk songs of Coro Santa Veronica, and in the African rhythms and melodies the kids of Father Kizito will bring us from Nairobi.

Ingresso libero

I Faden piano trio, formazione di jazz composta da Pier Marco Turchetti al pianoforte, Adriano Rugiadi al basso e Stefano Calvano alla batteria e percussioni, incrocia la tradizione della musica colta occidentale con sonorità mediterranee e gitane. Lo spettacolo interpreta questa fusione di generi col sostegno delle sequenze fotografiche di Leonardo Casadei e dei suoi paesaggi ravennati colti nel procedere delle stagioni.

The rich ate meat, the poor ate the entrails. The first had the flesh, the others the bones. Since time immemorial, the tale of food has been telling a story of abuse and revolution. How many people have died of hunger before learning that the only survival is from eating? Fantastic Entrails is a journey in words and music on the tale of a nice full belly. The legs of the journey will have titles like “Renzo Tramaglino’s capons”, “Hansel and Gretel for dinner?”, “Queen Marie Antoniette’s cakes”. Three Grand Gourmets, Antonello Salis, Gavino Murgia and Paolo Angeli, will take care of the music; a butler, Marcello Fois, will see to the words in a fantastic dinner that will make our spirits fat.

http://www.marcellofois.it/
http://www.antonellosalis.com
http://www.gavinomurgia.com
http://www.paoloangeli.com



La biografia di Domenico Scarlatti riserva ancora molti lati oscuri, specialmente per quanto riguarda i lunghi anni vissuti in Portogallo e in Spagna. Non a caso una delle caratteristiche delle sue Sonate è proprio l'influenza della musica popolare iberica. Una voce recitante ripercorrerà la romanzesca vita del compositore accompagnata dai clavicembali che evocheranno suoni di chitarra e rumori di nacchere.

He is six, and about to start school. But on the very first day his schoolmates notice he is different: he is not like the others; his father is an ogre. This award- winning play by renowned Canadian playwright Suzanne Lebeau is brought to the Italian stages by Marcello Chiarenza, and interpreted by Claudio Casadio and Daniela Piccari. The Ogreling deals with diversity, and explores the struggle with the monster within all of us, as we try to overcome our limitations. The protagonist will have to overcome three difficult ordeals, which will determine his coming of age, transformation and salvation. The actors move lightly on a magical stage, in a sequence of visual and sound suggestions that keep the audience enthralled till the final dénouement.

http://www.accademiaperduta.it/

Not easily classified, Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger is most systematically curious, eager for new sound situations and collaborations, always ready to engage in adventurous musical tasks and obviously never predictable. The champion and most radical of new improvised music, he is the protagonist of one of the most exciting seasons of European music in the last decades. Among other outstanding projects, Reijseger has built remarkable counterpoints to some of the films by another great master of extreme adventures: director Werner Herzog, whose latest film is Cave of Forgotten Dreams. The focus on Ernst Reijseger is itself a “journey” which will reserve several surprises to a listening audience of “travellers”, not “tourists”.

http://www.ernstreijseger.com/index.html

Minor Swing è una formazione costituita da cinque musicisti bolognesi uniti dalla passione per il jazz anni 30, quello comunemente definito jazz manouche o gipsy jazz. In questo genere musicale trovano la massima espressione gli strumenti a corda (chitarra, contrabbasso, violino...), come è tipico delle band tzigane. Lo stile rimanda allo swing delle grandi orchestre americane degli anni '20 - '30.

Not easily classified, Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger is most systematically curious, eager for new sound situations and collaborations, always ready to engage in adventurous musical tasks and obviously never predictable. The champion and most radical of new improvised music, he is the protagonist of one of the most exciting seasons of European music in the last decades. Among other outstanding projects, Reijseger has built remarkable counterpoints to some of the films by another great master of extreme adventures: director Werner Herzog, whose latest film is Cave of Forgotten Dreams. The focus on Ernst Reijseger is itself a “journey” which will reserve several surprises to a listening audience of “travellers”, not “tourists”.

http://www.ernstreijseger.com/index.html

The project, based on the analysis of documentary sources on Italian opera collected at the University Departments of Ravenna and Ferrara, proposes a Convention on Italian 18th and 19th century opera. The Convention is open to scholars and theatre producers alike, and
follows in the wake of Ravenna Festival’s project of reviving the opera tradition of the time, serving as a fruitful and useful connection between stage production and historical-critical reflection. This year’s Convention will be dedicated to I due Figaro by Felice Romani and Saverio
Mercadante, composed in Madrid in 1826 and never performed in modern times before the current re-staging by Riccardo Muti.

June, the 6th - 5 pm
Presentation Sala Corelli, Teatro Alighieri

7-10 and 13-15 june
Music workshop Scuola primaria statale “Filippo Mordani”

Info and workshop reservations:
www.tititom.com

Not easily classified, Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger is most systematically curious, eager for new sound situations and collaborations, always ready to engage in adventurous musical tasks and obviously never predictable. The champion and most radical of new improvised music, he is the protagonist of one of the most exciting seasons of European music in the last decades. Among other outstanding projects, Reijseger has built remarkable counterpoints to some of the films by another great master of extreme adventures: director Werner Herzog, whose latest film is Cave of Forgotten Dreams. The focus on Ernst Reijseger is itself a “journey” which will reserve several surprises to a listening audience of “travellers”, not “tourists”.

http://www.ernstreijseger.com/index.html

On stage, a single actor-narrator moves objects about, animating them in a fascinating revisiting of Charles Perrault’s “black” fairy tale. Marcello Chiarenza’s Little Thumbling, interpreted by Claudio Casadio, gives audiences of all ages a chance to confront with the sentiment of fear, explaining that curiosity and courage can help overcome the most distressing misfortunes. The protagonist engages in an extremely effective relationship with his audience. Little Thumbling is one of Accademia Perduta’s most fortunate and award-winning productions: it toured France, Spain and Switzerland, always performed in the local language. “Dedicated to all the Little Thumblings walking lightly through the forests of the world. Even those devastated by bombs”.

http://www.accademiaperduta.it/

The story of Staff Benda Bilili sounds like a modern fairy tale. Homeless (they lived in the gardens of the Kinshasa zoo), in dire straits and paraplegic, they formed a small street community and tried to ease their own hard lives through friendship and music. These senior musicians in spectacularly customised tricycles were joined by abandoned street kids with whom they improvised jam sessions rooted in Congo rumba, funky or reggae to while away their time for some small change.
A talent scout noticed them. An album was released. Success was unexpected. And now here they are, the essence of contemporary Africa’s romantic creativity: real music springing from the human soul’s genuine richness and hope.

Lo spettacolo, che trae ispirazione dal celebre Asino d’oro di Apuleio, è costituito da un incessante susseguirsi di brani di teatro di burattini,racconti di cantastorie e parodie della giocoleria, dell’acrobatica e dell’arte del trasformismo; uno show di arte varia che rimanda al decadente circo ottocentesco con la sua sgangherata struttura scenica e i suoi disorganizzati artisti di strada.

Seun Kuti is the youngest son of Fela Kuti, “The Black President”, one of the most influential artists of the xx century, a revolutionary Nigerian activist and musician, the inventor of afrobeat. He will be onstage with a historical band, Egypt 80 – “the most infernal rhythmic machine in Sub Saharan Africa” – renamed from Africa 70 in 1977 drawing on the civilization of Ancient Egypt. As his father before him, Seun fights for his people with music. Fela Anikulapo Kuti is now an icon of fighting Africa, eager to succeed by its own strength and culture against the injustice, corruption and arrogance of the powerful. Seun’s music conveys this feeling. His sound relies on the history of recent black music, but rap and new soul inflexions add to the rumble of the afrobeat locomotive.

An unsolvable conflict seems to arise between the theme of the fairy tale and the Sunday liturgies the Festival traditionally proposes. How can we reconcile the world of fancy and imagination with the truths of faith proclaimed by the liturgies, which are far from being fairy tales? “Let children come to me” said Jesus, who loved to address the crowds in parables: His truth was not a doctrine to be brandished, but rather a mystery to be unveiled through the eyes of the simple at heart. This year’s four liturgies will be marked by simplicity: in the children voices of the Coro Farnesiano from Piacenza, in the Alpine sounds evoked by the choir of Santa Lucia di Magras, in the traditional folk songs of Coro Santa Veronica, and in the African rhythms and melodies the kids of Father Kizito will bring us from Nairobi.

The bicentenary of Franz Liszt is the occasion for a programme including four masterpieces by the composer known as the symbol of Romantic piano virtuosity. Michele Campanella has dedicated his entire artistic career to the study and performance of the repertoire of this great Hungarian composer. He will be onstage with the Cherubini Youth Orchestra in the double role of pianist and conductor, giving shape to Liszt’s ideal of full integration of piano and orchestra virtuosity. The two concerts will see the piano alternatively confronting the orchestra or mingling with it, in the Dies irae-based Totentanz, which Liszt seems to have composed under the suggestion of the Triumph of Death frescoes of Pisa Cemetery, and in the Fantasia, the symphonic fulfilment of Liszt’s idea about Hungarian popular music.

http://www.orchestracherubini.it/

Ólafur Arnalds depicts an enchanted and magic world, made of gentle piano notes on a basis of light electronics and fascinating glacial strings. Ólafur’s sound universe made Icelandic music known to the rest of the planet, from the endless suites of Sigur Rós and Mùm to the ultra- refined research built by the strings and the feeble electronic echoes of Johann Johannsson and Peter Broderick’s school, to the pure classicism of the piano, the true protagonist in the music by this visionary classical composer. Classical and pop music can be one and the same thing: in some cases their two souls, seemingly so distant, meet, then they move together in a magmatic, sweet enchantment.

http://olafurarnalds.com/

Il ravennate Marco Rosetti, nonostante la giovane età, vanta un solido percorso formativo e professionale internazionale come musicista e compositore. Ispirandosi al tema di Ravenna Festival, ha composto musica e parole per questa favola moderna in cui, in un alternarsi di note e voce, si narra il percorso creativo di uno scrittore di favole stanco e poco ispirato.

Chador-clad girls praying to the Virgin Mary for fertility, Jews intoning Islam chants, Christians prostrating like Muslims and Muslims drinking wine... Monika Bulaj and Paolo Rumiz go on a pilgrimage along the cracks of the often quoted “clash of civilizations”, to the frontiers of spirituality, touching on unexplored lands where dramatically conflicting monotheisms reveal unsuspected spaces for coexistence. It is like “picking God’s crumbs” on a sort of backward journey towards a primogenial religious experience. The pages of these two indomitable tale-hunters now become theatre: words imbued with images, visions, knowledge... and music by the eclectic Sasha Karlic and his true virtuosos.

The immeasurable vastness of our musical patrimony, far from being completely explored, still hides extraordinary surprises, like a great musician from the xvii century, born in Romagna and still largely unknown. Angelo Berardi from Sant’Agata Feltria, a music theorist and the author of several writings, also composed a significant body of work, mostly of a sacred nature, serving as Chapel Master in Viterbo, Tivoli, Spoleto and at Santa Croce in Trastevere, Rome. Among his instrumental scores are the Sinfonie a violino solo, structured as recitatives where the solo violin, supported by the long-held notes of basso continuo, creates frequent dissonances, unexpected modulations, unusual melodic arabesques and sudden changes of register in a sort of “recitar suonando” (“acting while playing”).

In one of the most extraordinary histories of music ever written, Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht set the Romantic musician in an ideal world where Art has a redeeming function, as opposed to the ugliness of the real world the Artist cannot modify. To this idea, and to one of its embodiments – the hero, either a picaresque Don Quixote or a Byronesque Titan – Richard Strauss paid homage in 1897-98, with Don Quixote and Ein Heldenleben. The first is a theme with variations (depicting the adventures and defeats of Cervantes’s hero); the second is a collection of Straussian themes – Don Juan, Zarathustra, Tod und Verklärung: the heroic idealization of an author who explained: “I am not a hero... I am not cut out for battle”.

http://www.lesarts.com/Palau/PalaudelesArts/Laorquesta

Co-founder of seminal Basic Channel project, in the early ‘90s Moritz von Oswald contributed to impose the Detroit-Chicago- Berlin axis on the scene of electronic music, remodelling the history of the genre and influencing techno, house and experimentation. This star trio includes Finn Vladislav Delay, who blended the boundaries of micro-house and avantgarde in some unforgettable albums. Third is Max Loderbauer from NSI, another guru of research electronics. Their live show is dense, musical and surreal: Loderbauer’s synthesizer, Delay’s percussions and von Oswald’s audio and mixer effects generate moments, ongoing melodic lines, metallic sounds and space jazz rhythms that make their music an oneiric trip in electronics.

Dalla collaborazione di tre artisti ravennati nasce questo progetto di interazione di suono, danza, pittura e proiezione video. Su un pannello elettroacustico che si attiva attraverso la conduzione elettrica nei diluenti della pittura, Aldo Becca gioca con tracce di colore che richiamano l’oro, proiettandole su uno schermo e definendo via via lo spazio sonoro e di movimento in cui agisce la danzatrice Michela Minguzzi.

An explosion of joy. Gorgeous. Unforgettable. Vibrant. Exuberant. These are but a few of the comments by some of the most titled British critics on the West End performance of this African-style Magic Flute, which obtained a few most coveted awards in the British kingdom of musical. Far from the fantastic, fairy-tale Egypt Schikaneder imagined, the new set is a crowded Cape Town township: here, in an Africa hovering between modernity and tribal past, unpredictable director Mark Dornford-May and Co. revive the tale of Tamino, Pamina and Papageno. Mozart’s score is re-read to the sound of an orchestra of marimbas, with a jazz trumpet replacing the ethereal flute: far from philological “sacredness”, it is consecrated to the rhythmical physicality of a tribal initiation rite.

Vladimir Propp’s seminal essay, Morphology of the Folktale, centres on a fundamental idea: all children tales, from Afanasev’s Russian folktales to international fairy tales, are based on a handful of character types and narrative functions: the hero, the villain, the magical helper, the king, the princess, some impossible assignment, a time “long, long ago”, a “faraway land” and a final “happily ever after”. If fairy tales are so universal, why not playing a little? The libretto for Histoire du soldat, taken from Afanasev’s immortal collection, was written in French, the score is a tangle of the most varied dances and musical forms... Cosmopolitan Stravinsky would probably not be upset by our version in the Romagna dialect!

A thin red thread connects the concert of bewitching Natacha Atlas to the African subplot of this year’s Festival. Atlas, a Belgian singer of Egyptian origins, now at the Zenith of her solo career, joins once again “her” Transglobal Underground, a collective of DJs and musicians known for their multicultural music. Fusing Arabic and North-African tradition with Western electronics and dance music in a melting pot of influences that span Indian classical, house, new age, trip hop and dub sounds, Transglobal Underground and their sensual lead-singer have been rocking crowds since the early 90s as the masters of “World dance fusion”.

Purity and delicacy. And versatility, interpretative intelligence and passion. The greatness of Manuel Legris, a star of international ballet, relies on these foundations, the same foundations from which, as a director, he is now making the historical Wiener Staatsballett flourish once again. A new generation of artists, brilliant interpreters of ballet tradition who can convey the feeling of our time. The prestigious programme proposed by this Gala fully demonstrates this: the étoiles and solo dancers of WienerStaatsBallett and Legris himself will present a fascinating compendium of a century of classical ballet, from Petipa’s splendour to Balanchine’s architectures and Forsythe’s remakes; from MacMillan’s intimist drama to the pathos of Eifman.

http://www.wiener-staatsoper.at/Content.Node/home/staatsballett/Allgemein.de.php

Born in Arras, in the Artois region, Adam de la Halle reached the court of Charles of Anjou, in Naples, around 1282, in the aftermath of the Sicilian Vespers. Naples saw the first staging of Le jeu de Robin et de Marion, a sort of play with music alternating monodic and polyphonic parts and narrating how young shepherdess Marion remained faithful to her betrothed Robin, resisting a knight who showed more interest in her than in the falcon he was chasing. This musical play will be performed by Micrologus, who have a long experience in the interpretation of medieval scores and in the problems with notation, with the relationship between voices and instruments, with stylistic registers, and who have always been aware of the contribution the knowledge of folk music can bring to the interpretation of medieval music.

http://www.micrologus.it/

A collaboration between Titans: the King Midas of electronic experimentation, Alva Noto, and Blixa Bargeld, musician, composer and actor, best known as the front man of Einstürzende Neubauten. Together they explore the boundaries of voice and music, creating vocal manipulations and complex, stratified sounds where ambient plots merge with claustrophobic but enchanting free-forms and some softer, more ethereal parts. Their philosopher’s stone lies in the admirable balance between Bargeld’s mutable voice and Alva Noto’s alien tics. Hence comes a musical concept based on a mix of improvisation and abstraction, where the impulsive live vocal performance and the elaborate soundscapes converge with astonishing and unexpected results.

http://www.blixa-bargeld.com/

http://www.alvanoto.com/

An unsolvable conflict seems to arise between the theme of the fairy tale and the Sunday liturgies the Festival traditionally proposes. How can we reconcile the world of fancy and imagination with the truths of faith proclaimed by the liturgies, which are far from being fairy tales? “Let children come to me” said Jesus, who loved to address the crowds in parables: His truth was not a doctrine to be brandished, but rather a mystery to be unveiled through the eyes of the simple at heart. This year’s four liturgies will be marked by simplicity: in the children voices of the Coro Farnesiano from Piacenza, in the Alpine sounds evoked by the choir of Santa Lucia di Magras, in the traditional folk songs of Coro Santa Veronica, and in the African rhythms and melodies the kids of Father Kizito will bring us from Nairobi.

Partendo dalla favola della piccola fiammiferaia di Andersen, lo spettacolo ripercorre alcuni temi classici della letteratura per l’infanzia associandoli ad ambienti visivi costruiti attraverso citazioni dell’arte figurativa. Il teatro di figura con attori viene rafforzato dalle più elaborate tecniche multimediali attraverso una scena virtuale rappresentata in tempo reale mediante computer.

The voice of Alda Caiello, a tireless interpreter of xx century music, is the guiding thread of a programme entirely dedicated to the expressive potentialities of the female voice. A special tie bounds Caiello to Folk Songs: she had the opportunity of working on this cycle with Berio himself, who had composed it for Cathy Berberian
in 1964. He did not think of them as a transcription of folk songs, but rather as a meditation on a kind of composition that can take into account the expressive modalities of different musical cultures. Schönberg himself was very demanding on voice in his Pierrot Lunaire (1912): the singing voice had to respect pitches in order to obtain a melody which was rather “spoken” than “sung”,intheSprechstimmestyle–a theatrical and narrative vocal technique within a precise musical perspective.

http://www.aldacaiello.com/

If one single word should be used to describe Stephen O’Malley, it should be “versatility”. This American guitarist, the guru of drone, is always perfectly at ease: with his devastating group, Sunn O))), as the creator of such algid and rarefied scores for the theatre with sophisticated Aethenor, or generating the nightmarish sounds of KTL. But this time O’Malley will collaborate with a totally unusual partner: Yuri Ancarani – at present one of the most interesting Italian video-makers. They will work on an unexpected project on the bora. The video was shot in the Rosandra Valley, in the Carso region bordering on Slovenia, the Italian entry point of so many illegal immigrants, and also the place where the strong wind called “bora” blows hardest.

http://www.yuriancarani.com/

Una fiaba tradizionale africana interpretata da 21 piccoli artisti-acrobati del Kivuli Centre di Nairobi. A Kivuli (in swahili Rifugio) le attività che hanno una dimensione di spettacolo sono di grande aiuto per i bambini di strada raccolti dalle baraccopoli che hanno bisogno di recuperare fiducia in se stessi e autostima, di ritrovare la gioia di essere apprezzati dagli altri. Simba na Mende è un invito ad impegnarsi perché tutti i
bambini del mondo crescano in quel clima di pace, di cura e di affetto cui hanno diritto.

Now in its third year, Praying Voices is renewed and returns as a moment and place for listening and praying. In the year dedicated to tales, the sacred books of different faiths will work as guide books and call for all those who want to start listening to themselves and to others, to that very Other who can project our ego into a truer, more human dimension. Man is, by his own nature, “communion”. He is born from a loving gesture from a man and a woman, and can only survive and grow within a human community. In one of the most emblematic places of an ancient but still possible communion between East and West (the San Vitale basilica) people of different faith will meet, sharing a similar desire for infinity (from the Latin, de siderum).

Danza e parola, gesto e musica: è nell’intreccio simbiotico dei diversi linguaggi che si muove ancora una volta l’inesausta vena creativa di Micha van Hoecke. In una sintesi espressiva che, dopo Le Baccanti, lo riporta alle origini del teatro – Euripide e Seneca – e alla stringente attualità che le antiche tragedie sanno ogni volta rivelare. Caduta Troia e chiusi nel sangue dieci anni di guerra, rimangono le donne destinate ai vincitori, schiave d’amore e di morte: è il loro sguardo a condurci lungo lo strazio del lutto e l’inutile violenza della guerra. Cassandra, Andromaca, Elena, ma soprattutto Ecuba, regina e madre, affidata all’interpretazione di uno degli artisti più visionari e genialmente provocatori degli ultimi decenni: Lindsay Kemp, mimo, clown, danzatore (ma anche pittore), maestro di quel gesto che, irripetibile, disegna e reinventa lo spazio.

http://www.michavanhoecke.org/

“For my part, I have always aimed at bringing Verdi back to his own scores [...], which does not mean doing all that is written, but trying to capture all the infinite underlying possibilities through the sign.” To Riccardo Muti, Verdi’s language is a sort of “mother tongue”, the embodiment of the idea of a musical Italianness at its best, the expression of the deepest layer of our national character. Thus, some of the most intense pages of his operas, with a significant hint at the most distinctive Bellini lyricism, will quiver in this “choral” concert like a sort of musical national flag – with an inevitable reference to Italy’s 150th anniversary. Muti will conduct an extraordinary ensemble gathering the most important Italian youth orchestras, experienced choirs and talented soloists.

http://www.orchestracherubini.it/
http://www.riccardomuti.com/cover.aspx

T.E.L. is a device for Utopian communication. Two actors, in two different places, separated by space and perhaps time, but passionately intent on reaching the same indomitable phantom. Two different audiences, simultaneously witnessing their possible-impossible dialogue, barely aware of their mutual presence. “If you go down an uncertain track into a desert, any desert, you will be taken by a strange sort of tiredness, a wish for a halt: there you will think you hear a light noise, and you will start wondering: noise or voice? What noise? Whose voice? Every noise, animal, wind, shot, voice, throat, known or unknown language will tell you that something is happening somewhere else with an apparent rhythmical cadence.”

http://www.fannyalexander.org/