Sir Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) will inaugurate the 34th edition of the ‘Settembre dell’Accademia’ festival this Sunday, September 7th, at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona. The opening concert will feature works by Shostakovich, Chopin, and Beethoven.
The international music festival, organized by the Accademia Filarmonica di Verona, will present seven concerts running through October 1st, featuring major orchestras and soloists from the global scene. Subsequent performances will include the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova with Alexander Lonquich as both conductor and soloist; the newly formed The Constellation Choir & Orchestra under John Eliot Gardiner, making its Italian debut; the Dresdner Philharmonie led by Finnish-Russian conductor Dima Slobodeniouk with pianist Boris Giltburg; the Budapest Festival Orchestra under its founder Iván Fischer, featuring violinist Guy Braunstein; and finally, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen conducted by Riccardo Minasi with piano soloist Beatrice Rana.
Sir Antonio Pappano will launch the festival with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9, marking the 50th anniversary of the Russian composer’s death. The program continues with Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, performed by young Korean pianist Seon-Jin Cho, and concludes with Beethoven’s famed Fifth Symphony. The British conductor of Italian origin—knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 and a recipient of Italy’s Knight Grand Cross—is currently the emeritus director of Rome’s Santa Cecilia Orchestra after an 18-year tenure. This year also marks his twentieth anniversary of collaboration with the LSO.
Europe’s oldest music academy, established in 1543 and currently chaired by Luigi Tuppini, has designed this year’s program to span centuries of music, from Bach and Mozart to Shostakovich, with a special focus on the 19th century and composers including Mendelssohn, Brahms, Chopin, and particularly Beethoven. The festival will close on October 1st with Beatrice Rana and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen performing Weber’s Overture to “Der Freischütz,” Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, and Brahms’ Symphony No. 4.
This year’s festival also coincides with the 50th anniversary of the reopening of the Teatro Filarmonico. The historic 18th-century venue, originally designed by Francesco Galli Bibiena, was reconstructed following bombings in February 1945 near the end of World War II, which devastated the building for the second time in its history after a fire in 1749.
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