August 04, 2007
Forty-first AsiagoFestival
Eight summer concerts and a major fall event in the name of great music and its dissemination
41st ASIAGOFESTIVAL August 7 – October 28, 2007
PRESS RELEASE
FOURTH ASIAGOFESTIVAL:
EIGHT SUMMER CONCERTS AND A GREAT AUTUMN EVENT IN THE SIGN OF GREAT MUSIC AND ITS DIFFUSION
The sounds of great music return to Asiago, with the 41st edition of AsiagoFestival.
This renews the charm and originality of a high quality musical and cultural proposal, whose long history is testimony, in itself, to a value recognized both by the artists who participate each year with great enthusiasm and generosity, and by a demanding and loyal audience.
And they are also reaffirmed, thus, the inspirational motives of the event conceived and desired by the multifaceted musician from Asiago Fiorella Benetti Brazzale, who in the 1960s began to invite to Asiago some of the best performers of international fame and young Italian and foreign talents to compose eclectic posters attentive to organ and sacred music as well as chamber and contemporary music. Motives and objectives that, after four decades of success, continue to reside first and foremost in the defense and dissemination of musical culture and that since 1992, the year of Benetti Brazzale’s passing, have been inherited by the Cultural Association Friends of Music of Asiago named after her and chaired by her son, Roberto Brazzale. Association that wanted to continue to program great music by offering it strictly at free admission, as it has been since the beginnings of the Festival.
The playbill of this new edition of the Asiago Festival, signed by its artistic director Julius Berger, places side by side big names and young talents; unpublished works and universally known masterpieces; Italian and foreign artists; solo recitals and the original staging of a Mozartian youth singspiel. Music without distinction, in short. But always great music offered by outstanding performers, as is the tradition of the Festival. A particular appendix to the eight concerts programmed in August will be the one proposed on October 28 with an entire day dedicated to the guest composer, Jean Guillou, who will be in Asiago both to meet the public (and thus honor another special and appreciated custom of the Festival), and for the inauguration of the Ruffatti Organ of the Cathedral of San Matteo. Precisely the instrument around which the Festival began, more than forty years ago and that – restored and expanded thanks to an exciting collection of public and private resources – will be the protagonist of a new season of projects that AsiagoFestival is preparing to realize since the next edition.
Info: 0424.464081 (Municipality of Asiago Tourism Office) – www.asiagofestival.it
THE CARDBOARD.
41st ASIAGOFESTIVAL August 7 – October 28, 2007
Tuesday, August 7, 9 p.m. – ASIAGO – Cathedral of St. Matthew
Hampshire County Youth Orchestra
Music by: Copland, Saint-Saëns, Massenet , Shostakovich
Thursday, August 9, 9 p.m. – ASIAGO – Church of S.Rocco
Domenico Nordico, violin
Hyun-Jung Sung, cello
Oliver Kern, piano
Music by: Mendelssohn, Killmayer, D’Albert
First performance of the piece “Romanze” for cello and piano by D’Albert Eugen (1864 -1932)
Saturday, August 11, 21 hours – ASIAGO – Church of St. Rocco
Giampaolo Bandini, guitar
Henschel Quartett
Music by: Mendelssohn,, Killmayer, Castelnuovo Tedesco
Sunday, August 12, 9 p.m. – ASIAGO – Church of S.Rocco
“Cello Passionato,” cello ensemble:
Julius Berger, Hyun-Jung Berger, Soyeon Ahn, Alberto Brazzale
solo cello: Marcin Zdunik
Music by:Funck, Bach, Pergolesi, Boccherini, Paganini, Popper, Francini-Mores, Puetz, Gershwin
Tuesday, August 14, 9 p.m. – ASIAGO – Church of S.Rocco
Oliver Kern, piano
Music by:Bach, Seel, Schumann, Brahms, Killmayer, Mendelssohn
Wednesday, August 15, 9 p.m. – ASIAGO – Cathedral of St. Matthew
“Temple Music”
cello : Julius Berger and Hyun-Yung Berger music and texts from the Judeo-Christian tradition
Tuesday, August 21, 9 p.m. – ASIAGO – Church of S.Rocco
Leonora Armellini, piano
Music by:Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin
Friday, August 24, 9 p.m. – ASIAGO – Prunno Location “Bastiano e Bastiana” by W.A. Mozart
Breganze Youth Orchestra
director: Martina Pettenon
soprano: Jose Borgo tenor:Luca Favaron bass: Alberto Spadarotto direction: Davide Dolores
Sunday, October 28, 2007
10:30 a.m. Council Chamber, Asiago City Hall
“MEETING WITH THE COMPOSER: JEAN GUILLOU”
3 p.m. – St. Matthew’s Cathedral
Presentation of the restoration and expansion work on the Ruffatti organ 8:30 p.m. – St. Matthew’s Cathedral
organ: Jean Guillou
INAUGURAL CONCERT RUFFATTI ORGAN
Music by: Guillou, Haendel, Liszt, Benetti
artistic director: Julius Berger – free admission – www.asiagofestival.it
Public info: 0424.464081 (Asiago Municipality Tourism Office) Press info: 335.8223010 (Marina Grasso)
THE ORGANS AND THE HISTORY OF ASIAGOFESTIVAL
Asiagofestival was born in the sixties thanks to the will and the work of Fiorella Benetti Brazzale, organist, concert pianist and composer and teacher native of Asiago, former teacher at the Conservatory “B.Marcello” of Venice, founder of the Istituto Musicale Città di Thiene, Director of the Conservatory “A.Pedrollo” of Vicenza and titular organist of the Cathedral of Padua, which, with the support of Don Antonio Bortoli’s Parish of St. Matthew, aims to contribute to the defense and dissemination of musical culture by inviting to the plateau some of the best Italian and foreign performers and groups.
Thus were born the first concert cycles, which saw the growth year after year from scratch of an audience made up of vacationers and locals, who showed increasing appreciation for the musical offerings, flocking season after season in greater and greater numbers until very often they filled the Asiago Cathedral itself.
Benetti and other enthusiasts of the plateau continued their purpose with tenacity and dedication, so much so that the concert cycles in Asiago, always with free admission, became – in the 1970s – one of the national landmarks of sacred organ and choral music, thanks in part to the characteristics of the Ruffatti organ and St. Matthew’s Cathedral itself.
Hundreds of performers have thus been guests of Asiago, including soloists of the caliber of Luigi Sessa, Fernando Germani, Wolfango Dalla Vecchia, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, Peter Planjavski, Alessandro Esposito, Lukas, Gaston Litaize, Stefan Klinda, Julius Berger, Wolfgang von Karajan, or groups such as the Solisti Veneti or the Chamber Orchestra of Padua and Veneto, to name but a few.
By virtue of her particular sensitivity, Fiorella Benetti Brazzale also devoted much attention to composition and improvisation, as well as to the defense of the heritage of traditional local music of “Cimbrian” origin, also conducting various courses in composition, improvisation and interpretive improvement.
Beginning in the early 1980s Don Fernando Pilli, director of the Padua Cathedral Choir, joined Benetti Brazzale in organizing the festival; in those years various musical works, especially oratorios, were set up and performed, which met with great favor with the public. Thus Asiagofestival now extended over all the municipalities of the plateau, coming to offer nearly fifty concerts over the summer months, managing in this context to give space also to young performers and local ensembles, which alternated with names already established in the international field.
It had been born, in short, an authentic cultural heritage that risked being squandered when Fiorella Benetti Brazzale died prematurely, in 1992. due to a cardiac arrest that struck her in the Cathedral of Asiago right at the end of a concert.
Aware of the enormous work and passion employed in her project by the enlightened musician, after her demise the friends of the Festival did not want to let such a wealth dissipate, not least so as not to ignore the insistent requests of the affectionate public.
Thus was founded, in 1993, the “Cultural Association – Friends of Music of Asiago” , named after the founder and still chaired by her son, Roberto Brazzale. And Julius Berger, a world-renowned cellist and a person of particular cultural stature, enthusiastically offered his willingness to serve as artistic director of the Festival, to continue the tradition and spirit of its founder, so that Asiagofestival was able to continue without interruption.
Berger’s activities made it possible to intensify relations with the Sommerakademie of the Mozarteum in Salzburg and with many artists of international value, both from Italy and abroad, and thanks to the renovation of the hall of the former Cinema Grillo Parlante, the Festival was also able to develop the chamber music strand, which was much appreciated by the public.
Thus, in recent years, the likes of Franco Mezzena, Mario Brunello, Roberto Fabbriciani, Janez Bole with the Slovenian Madrigalists, Patrick Demenga, Stefan Hussong, Massimo Scattolin, Josè Gallardo have taken turns on the plateau, Hyun-jung Sung, Odile Pierre, Denes Zgysmondy, the Italian Trio, the Parma Trio, the Martinu Quartet, the Tchaikovsky Trio, the Prometeo Quartet, the Italian String Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Padua and Veneto, Giselle Herbert, Fabrizio Meloni, Marcello Defant, Athestis Consort and Chorus conducted by Filippo Maria Bressan, Ensemble Oktoechos conducted by Lanfranco Menga, Chen Zimbalista, Marcin Dylla, Stefan Hussong, Melinda Paulsen, Julia Bauer, Domenico Nordio, Ye-Eun Choi, Oliver Kern, Diego Dini Ciacci, Andrea Bacchetti, Sonig Tchakerian, the Groethysen-Tal duo, Gian Battista Rigon, Linus Roth, the Kamer Chor directed by Maris Sirmais, the Terpsycordes Quartet, as well as Julius Berger himself and many others.
GUEST COMPOSERS AND FIRST PERFORMANCES OF WORKS DEDICATED TO ASIAGO
Since 1998 Asiagofestival has begun the custom of inviting a composer of international renown, who is commissioned to give a work to be performed during the festival as a world premiere. The presence of these great masters has made it possible to hold meetings with the public, who can converse directly with the great masters of composition, learn directly about their human and artistic vicissitudes.
Toshio Hosokawa, Luis De Pablo, Aldo Clementi, Jindrich Feld, Bertold Hummel, Viktor Suslin, Wilhelm Killmayr, Giovanni Sollima, and Thierry Escaich have been guests of the event, and have dedicated their works to the City of Asiago. In 2006, the Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina was a guest of the Festival.
THE ORGANIZATION AND SPONSORS
ASIAGOFESTIVAL is organized by the Cultural Association “Friends of Music of Asiago” – “Fiorella Benetti Brazzale”, in collaboration with the Parish of St. Matthew, with the contribution and collaboration of the City of Asiago, Department of Tourism and Culture. Special thanks to Banca Popolare di Vicenza, Burro delle Alpi – Alpilatte, Gran Moravia, Bassan Bernardo e Figli, and Rigoni di Asiago for the support granted, which was crucial for the staging of the season, as well as other private firms who, by helping the event, show sensitivity to the activities that enrich our guests’ stay and cultural experiences on the plateau.
Info for the public: 0424.464081 (Municipality of Asiago Tourism Office) Info for the press: 335.8223010 (Marina Grasso)
XL ASIAGOFESTIVAL
An initiative of the Cultural Association “Friends of Music of Asiago – Fiorella Benetti Brazzale”, realized in collaboration and with the contribution of the Parish of St. Matthew of the Municipality of Asiago
and the support of: Gran Moravia, Banca Popolare di Vicenza, Burro delle Alpi – Alpilatte, Rigoni di Asiago.