July 15, 2010
Eight dates with great music on the Plateau
Presentation of the Asiago Festival 2010 edition
Eight appointments with great music in Asiago, for 44th edition of ASIAGOFESTIVAL, the original musical and cultural proposal that every year welcomes on the plateau world-renowned artists and a large audience of demanding fans.
Following the success of the acclaimed prologue offered on July 24 with the “Passio” of Fulvio Rampi’s Gregorian Cantors at the Asiago Cathedral, ASIAGOFESTIVAL officially opens its 44th edition on Thursday, August 5, with a new and eclectic billboard focusing on organ and sacred music as well as chamber and contemporary music.
The playbill of this new edition of the Asiago Festival, signed by its artistic director Julius Berger, once again places side by side big names and young talents; unpublished works and universally known masterpieces that can be applauded both in the renovated Palazzo del Turismo Millepini (historical building emblem of Asiago’s tourist vibrancy in the 1960s and 1970s), and in the Asiago Cathedral: prestigious and capacious venues that will obviate the overcrowding recorded in recent years in the church of San Rocco, historical venue of unforgettable musical evenings.
Eight, in all, are the concerts scheduled from Aug. 5 to 19 (always starting at 9 p.m.), starting with one featuring Prague organist Jaroslav Tůma, who will perform music by J. S. Bach, J. Klicka, B. Martinů, P. Eben and one of his own compositions on the Ruffatti organ in the Cathedral on Thursday, Aug. 5.
On Saturday, Aug. 7, the Millepini Palace will host German violinist Linus Roth and Argentine pianist Jose Gallardo who will perform works by R.Schumann, M. Ravel, K. Szymanowski and A. Piazzolla. This will be followed by two appointments dedicated to the Piano Quartet, at the Millepini: Gallardo will pay tribute to Schumann and Chopin whose bicentenaries of birth fall on Sunday, Aug. 8, playing with the Prague violinist Roman Patočka, the Venetian Domenico Nordio (viola) and the Korean naturalized German cellist Hyun-Jung Berger. On Tuesday, Aug. 10, again Gallardo and Nordio engaged this time with violinist Linus Roth and festival artistic director Julius Berger on cello.
On Saturday, Aug. 14, the ensemble “Cello appassionato” (composed of cellists Julius Berger, Hyun-Jung Berger, Soyeon Ahn, Christian Bertoncello, Anna Grendene and Alberto Brazzale), in addition to music by W.A Mozart, F.Lachner, P.I. Čajkovskij and S. Prokoviev will perform the premiere of “Dolce malinconia” a piece composed by Manuela Kerer, a South Tyrolean composer inspired by a passage by Mario Rigoni Stern.
Kerer will then be the star of the day on Sunday, Aug. 15, when at 10:30 a.m. she will be at the Council Chamber of the Asiago City Hall for the now customary “Meeting with the Composer,” one of the “Spearheads” of the festival’s programming, an event that every year attracts fans and scholars from many parts of the Veneto region and Italy for an informal dialogue and discussion on the themes of contemporary composition, together with its protagonists.
Then at 9 p.m., the Asiago Cathedral will host the Concert Tribute to Manuela Kerer, with the women’s choir Ensemble La Rose (directed by Jose Borgo) and with the men’s choir Coenobium Vocale (directed by Maria Dal Bianco) and cello by Julius Berger), who will perform the world premiere of “Sleghe pa dar nacht” that Kerer dedicated to the City of Asiago. Also on the program are evocative contemporary vocal works by G. Bonato, E. Whitacre, R. Real, J. Busto, A.J. Alcaraz Pastor, K. Nystedt, E. Grieg and M. Lauridsen.
On Tuesday, August 17, also at Asiago’s St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Japanese organist Maki Yamamoto will perform Western and Eastern “classical” and contemporary music by J.S.Bach, C Franck, J.Alain, and T. Hosokawa.
Also dedicated to J.S.Bach is the concluding concert, to be held on Thursday, Aug. 19, at the Millepini: Israeli pianist Yaara Tal and her German partner Andreas Groethuysen, i.e., one of the world’s leading piano duos, will perform the “Goldberg Variations” for two pianos, in Joseph Rheinberger and Max Reger’s elaboration.
As per tradition, admission to most of the concerts will be free; exceptions are the dates of August 9, 10 and 19, which will have a single ticket of 10 euros. Children under the age of 18 will, however, be able to access these for free as well (Advance ticket sales by 6 p.m. on the day of the concert at the Tourism Office of the Municipality of Asiago – Piazza G.Carli, 56 – telephone 0424/46408. Ticket sales at the hall box office from 19.00)
Information… and much more, at www.asiagofestival.it.
THE CARDBOARD.
Thursday, August 5, 9:00 p.m. – ASIAGO – St. Matthew Cathedral
JAROSLAV TŮMA, organ
Music by J. S. Bach, J. Klicka, B. Martinů, J. Tůma , P. Eben
Free admission
Saturday, August 7, 9:00 p.m. – ASIAGO – Palazzo del Turismo Millepini
LINUS ROTH, violin
JOSÉ GALLARDO, piano
Music by R.Schumann, M. Ravel, K. Szymanowski, A. Piazzolla
Free admission
Sunday, August 8, 9:00 p.m. – ASIAGO – Palazzo del Turismo Millepini
THE QUARTET WITH PIANOFORTE – I
JOSÉ GALLARDO, piano
ROMAN PATOČKA, violin
DOMENICO NORDIO, viola
HYUN-JUNG BERGER, cello
Music by W.A. Mozart, G. Fauré, F. Chopin
Single ticket 10 € – free admission for young people up to 18 years old
Tuesday, August 10, 9:00 p.m. – ASIAGO – Palazzo del Turismo Millepini THE QUARTET WITH PIANO – II
JOSÉ GALLARDO, piano
LINUS ROTH, violin
DOMENICO NORDIO, viola
JULIUS BERGER, cello
Music by R. Schumann, J. Brahms, G. Mahler
Single ticket 10 € – free admission for young people up to 18 years old
Saturday, August 14, 9 p.m. – ASIAGO – Palazzo del Turismo Millepini
premiere performance of “Sweet Melancholy” by Manuela Kerer
ENSEMBLE CELLO PASSIONATO
Julius Berger, Hyun-Jung Berger, Soyeon Ahn,
Christian Bertoncello, Anna Grendene, Alberto Brazzale, cellos Music by W.A Mozart, F.Lachner, P.I. Tchaikovsky, M. Kerer, S. Prokoviev Free admission
Sunday, August 15 – ASIAGO
10:30 a.m. Council Chamber of City Hall
“MEETING WITH COMPOSER: MANUELA KERER”
9 p.m. Cathedral S.Matthew
CONCERT “HOMAGE TO MANUELA KERER”
premiere performance of “Sleghe pa dar nacht” dedicated to the City of Asiago ENSEMBLE LA ROSE – Jose Borgo, director
COENOBIUM VOCALE – Marina Dal Bianco, director
JULIUS BERGER, cello
Music by: G. Bonato, E. Whitacre, R. Real, J. Busto, A.J. Alcaraz Pastor, K.
Nystedt, E. Grieg, M. Lauridsen, M. Kerer
Free admission
Tuesday, August 17 at 9 p.m. – ASIAGO – St. Matthew Cathedral
MAKI YAMAMOTO, organ
Music by J.S.Bach, C Franck, J.Alain, T. Hosokawa
Thursday, August 19 at 9 p.m.00 – ASIAGO – Palazzo del Turismo Millepini
YAARA TAL, piano
ANDREAS GROETHUYSEN, piano
Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” for two pianos (elaboration by Joseph Rheinberger and Max Reger)
Single ticket €10 – free admission for young people up to 18 years old
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: JULIUS BERGER
FREE ADMISSION
Dates August 8-10-19: ticket euro 10.00 Free admission for those under 18 years old
Presale tickets by 18.00 on the day of the concert at the Tourist Office of the City of Asiago – Piazza G.Carli, 56 – phone 0424/464081
Ticket sales at the box office of the hall from 19.00
www.asiagofestival.it
Press info: 335.8223010 (Marina Grasso)
ASIAGOFESTIVAL: A LONG HISTORY OF MUSIC
In the 1960s Fiorella Benetti Brazzale, an organist, concert performer and composer and teacher who was a native of Asiago (teacher at the Conservatorio “B.Marcello” in Venice, founder of the Istituto Musicale Città di Thiene, director of the Conservatorio “A.Pedrollo” in Vicenza and titular organist of the Cathedral of Padua) began inviting to the plateau some of the best Italian and foreign performers and ensembles. With the support of the Asiago Parish of St. Matthew and its pastor Don Antonio Bortoli, he thus gave birth to the first concert cycles that took the name Asiago Festival.
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.
In addition, Fiorella Benetti Brazzale also devoted a great deal of attention to composition and improvisation, as well as to the defense of the heritage of local traditional 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 staged and performed, which met with great public favor.
Thus Asiagofestival now spread over all the municipalities of the plateau, reaching about fifty concerts each summer, thus managing to give space even to young performers and local ensembles, which alternated with the names already established in the international arena.
It had come into being, 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 Asiago Cathedral at the very end of a concert.
Aware of the enormous amount of work and passion employed in her project by the enlightened musician, after her passing 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 devoted audience.
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.
“HE LOST HIMSELF IN THE MUSIC.” JULIUS BERGER, AN EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
An open and cheerful smile, a most refined sensitivity, a genteel and never formal courtesy. This is how Julius Berger is known in Asiago, which he has been frequenting for years with great affection and passion as much toward ASIAGOFESTIVAL, of which he is artistic director, as toward the whole Plateau. He, who devotes his free time from artistic commitments to his family and to the search for silence in contemplation of the Alpine world, is now truly at home in Asiago.
But the “familiarity” with this extraordinary this musician who spends himself with great generosity for the realization of the Asiaghese festival, thanks also to the now very solid friendship that binds him to Roberto Brazzale, should not make us forget that he is one of the most acclaimed artists of our time, as his resume summarized below testifies.
Born in 1954 in Augsburg, he studied at the “Musikhochschule Miinchen” with Walter Reichhard and Fritz Kiskalt, then at the “Mozarteum” in Salzburg with Antonio Janigro (from 1979 to 1982 he worked as his assistant). He continued his studies with Zara Nelsova (Cincinnati/USA) and also participated in a master class with Mstislav Rostropovitsch. At the age of 28 he became a professor at the “Musikhochschule Wiirzburg,” thus being the youngest professor in Germany. He then taught in Saarbriicken, Mainz and since 2000 at the “Musikhochschule of
Augsburg and Niirnberg”.He is currently professor of cello and chamber music at the “Leopold Mozart Zentrum” of the University of Augsburg. Since 1992, he has been holding regular master classes at the “Internationalen Sommerakademie des Mozarteums” in Salzburg.
His recordings of J.S. Bach’s 6 Suites are praised by critics and audiences, along with Luigi Boccherini’s unpublished concertos. He premieres works by M.Bruch, L.Boccherini, R.Strass, M.Wolpe, M.Dupré, G.Tartini, L.Leo, for the labels Ebs, Orfeo, Wergo, Cpo, Organ.
A sensitive and inspired contemporary performer, he has deep relationships with some of the most important composers of our time, such as Olivier Messiaen, Sofia Gubaidulina,Wolfgang Rihm, Toshio Hosokawa , Wilhelm Killmeyer, Bertold Kummel, Viktor Suslin, and Adriana Holsky, who
dedicate many works he premiered to him.
He participated in numerous concerts and tours together with distinguished colleagues such as Leonhard Bemstein, Eugen Jochum, Gidon Kremer, Jiirg Demus, Norman Shetler, Piene-Laurent Aimard, Bemd Glemser, Stefan Hussong, Eduard Brunner, Wolfagang Meyer.
He is president of the international “Leopold Mozart” competition and a jury member of numerous awards in Salzburg, Kronberg, Munich, and Warsaw, as well as artistic director of the Ffkelshausener Musiktage and the “Mozart 2006” celebration program of the city of Augsburg.
He is the author of poems and essays such as “Irritationskraft” (Hindemith Jahrbuch 1992), “Einheit in der Vielfalt – Vielfalt in der Einheit” (Forschungsmin der Universitàt Mainz, 1998), “Zeit und Ewigkeit” (preface by Card.Karl Kardinal Lehmann, 2001). Since 1997 he has been a member of the “Zentralkomitees der
deutschen Katholiken”, and is a member of the music commission of the ‘Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes’. Since 2009 he has been a member of the prestigious “Akademie der Wissenschaften und Literatur in Mainz.”
In July 2010, following the success of his performance of Schumann’s concerto for cello and orchestra in the prestigious and futuristic “Disney Concert Hall” in Los Angeles, designed by Franck Gehry, critic Mark Swed of the “Los Angeles Times” wrote about him : “Berger gave a remarkably rhapsodic performance. He lost himself in the music, almost embarrassingly so. He even conducted with his bow and, with gaping wide mouth, silently san along with the strings. He went in for interpretive extremes ‘.
ASIAGO: A GRAND SUMMER STAGE FOR SOLOISTS OF EXCELLENCE
Berger’s activities have enabled him to intensify his relationships with the Sommerakademie of the Mozarteum in Salzburg and with many artists of international value who have been guests of ASIAGOFESTIVAL in recent years; such as Franco Mezzena, Mario Brunello, Roberto Fabbriciani, Janez Bole with the Slovenian Madrigalists, Patrick Demenga, Stefan Hussong, Massimo Scattolin, Josè Gallardo, 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, the Athestis Consort and Chorus conducted by Filippo Maria Bressan, the Oktoechos Ensemble 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 talk directly with the great masters of composition, learn directly about their human and artistic vicissitudes.
Guests at the event were Toshio Hosokawa, Luis De Pablo, Aldo Clementi, Jindrich Feld, Bertold Hummel, Viktor Suslin, Wilhelm Killmayr, Giovanni Sollima, Thierry Escaich,
Sofia Gubaidulina, Jean Guillou, Kzysztof Meyer, Keiko Harada. The young South Tyrolean composer Manuiela Kere, a guest of the 2010 edition, dedicated “Sleghe pa dar nacht,” for choir and cello, and “Dolce malinconia” (on a text by Mario Rigoni Stern) for cello quartet, which will be premiered during the 44th edition of ASIAGOFESTIVAL.
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 go 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 instrumental in 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: 0424.464081 (Municipality of Asiago Tourism Office) – www.asiagofestival.it
Press info: Marina Grasso (cell. 335.8223010)