ClassicheFORME International Chamber Music festival

ClassicheFORME 2021: ONE WEEK OF GREAT MUSIC IN SALENTO

The fifth edition of the Chamber Music International Festival created and directed by pianist Beatrice Rana evolves and is further extended

10 events are scheduled from 18 to 24 July in Lecce

Next to its Artistic Director some of the Festival’s European protagonists include Renaud Capuçon, Pablo Ferrández, Liya Petrova, and Grégoire Vecchioni

and young Italian talents like Andrea Obiso, Ludovica Rana, and Massimo Spada

A new world premiere commissioned to Carlo Boccadoro

A whole day dedicated to Stravinsky to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his death

A full week of open-air live music, with ten events taking place in some of the most fascinating places of Lecce and its surrounding areas, and with some great Italian and European guests: this is the fifth edition of the Chamber Music International Festival ClassicheFORME, created and directed by Salento’s pianist Beatrice Rana, and scheduled from 18 to 24 July 2021.

After four “weekend” editions, on its fifth year the Festival has decided to increase its program and present its audience with a rich selection of events covering seven consecutive days, featuring four main evening concerts, one extra evening concert titled “Capitali Pugliesi”, two “In Campo Aperto” concerts, two events falling under the “ClassicheFORME Young” project, and a conversation on Igor Stravinsky – happening on a day fully dedicated to him – to celebrate fifty years since the death of the Russian composer.

This is an important milestone confirming the success of the initiative strongly desired and supported by Beatrice Rana, who is considered one of today’s best Under30 pianists and who was praised by the “New York Times” for her appreciated debut at the Carnegie Hall in 2009. She was granted the “Female Solo Artist” award at the 2018 Classic BRIT held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and is an exclusive Warner Classics artist. Her ClassicheFORME Festival has been an award-winning event since its very beginning in 2017 – by the Italian President Sergio Mattarella – and received the 2019-2020 EFFE Label from the European Festivals Association, which was also confirmed in 2021. From last year the Festival has in Sir Antonio Pappano its Honorary President.

«Those who know me are well aware of my deep love for and indissoluble bond with Lecce and all the traditions, smells and colors of the Salento – says Artistic Director Beatrice Rana –. I like to think of ClassicheFORME almost as an ancestral rite connecting me directly to my land every year for at least a few days. This Fifth edition is particularly heartfelt: not only because of its increased program, but because it was thought and scheduled following such a difficult period for all of us artists. The program of the Festival – continues the pianist – will feature the celebration of an important anniversary, some works from the great chamber music tradition, the performance of the work that the Festival commissioned to my friend Carlo Boccadoro, two concerts by ensembles made up of emerging artists, and two events “In Campo Aperto” (In Open Space). For the latter events I wanted a place where there are no stages or separations with the audience, no distinctions between emerging and established artists, an “open space” where our audience can be fully absorbed, a place where music and nature resonate with the same vibrations, and the spectators are surrounded by breathtaking landscapes».

Among the international guests of the 2021 Festival is one of today’s most successful violin players, French musician Renaud Capuçon, who regularly performs with prestigious ensembles like the Berliner Philharmoniker and the London Symphony Orchestra, and who has recently played with Beatrice Rana in Madrid. This will be his first time at ClassiceFORME. And then Bulgarian violin player Liya Petrova, first prize at the 2016 Danish International Competition Carl Nielsen; Spanish cellist Pablo Ferrández, prized at the XV Tchaikovsky Competition and an appreciated interpreter at the first edition of the Festival; and French musician Grégoire Vecchioni, viola of the Orchestra of the Paris Opéra.

The Festival will also be featuring some of Italy’s young talents, like the concertmaster of the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia Andrea Obiso, who is returning after his last year’s performance; twenty-six-year-old cello player from Salento Ludovica Rana, Beatrice’s sister, who has won several competitions like the “Grand Prize Virtuoso” in Vienna and the “Young Virtuoso Award” at the Manhattan Competition in New York; and pianist Massimo Spada, who has performed at the Parco della Musica in Rome and at the MITO Festival in Turin.

4 main evening concerts

The Festival’s four main evening concerts are all at 9pm in the fascinating Chiostro del Rettorato dell’Università del Salento in Lecce. The opening will be on Sunday 18 July with pianist Beatrice Rana, violinists Andrea Obiso and Liya Petrova, violist Grégoire Vecchioni, and cellist Beatrice Rana, on a program that includes the world premiere of Room 237 for violin, cello and piano, commissioned by ClassicheFORME to Carlo Boccadoro; Anton Webern’s Langsamer Satz for String Quartet WoO 6; and Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2 Op. 81. The following concert, on Wednesday 21 July, titled “Le Sacre du Printemps”, will take place on a day dedicated to Stravinsky, and it will see the performance of the composer’s original piano four hands piece by the same title interpreted by Beatrice Rana and Massimo Spada. The program will also see the performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 3 Op. 69; and of the Fugues for String Quartet No. 2, No. 3, and No. 5 K405 from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s transcriptions of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier: the Sonata will be interpreted by Pablo Ferrández and Beatrice Rana while the Fugues will be performed by Obiso, Petrova, Vecchioni, and Ludovica Rana. The six musicians will also be playing on Friday 23 July a concert titled “Kreutzer Sonata”, evoking two of the works presented: Leoš Janáček’s String Quartet No. 1 VII/8 inspired by Tolstoy’s book “The Kreutzer Sonata”, and Beethoven’s “Kreutzer Sonata” in the composer’s original version for String Quintet. The evening will also see the performance of Sergey Rachmaninoff’s Trio Élegiaque for piano, violin and cello Op. 9. The Festival will then be closing on Saturday 24 July with a recital featuring French violin star Renaud Capuçon and Beatrice Rana, they will be interpreting Sergey Prokofiev’s famous Sonata No. 1 in F minor for violin and piano Op. 80, and the Sonata No. 2 in D major Op. 94bis; as well as Robert Schumann’s Sonata Op. 105 in A minor for violin and piano.

1 extra evening concert

The event scheduled on Monday 19 July at 9pm at the Ortale del Teatro Koreja in Lecce is titled “Capitoli Pugliesi”, featuring the young Trio Orione – formed by clarinet player Gianluigi Caldarola, cello player Ludovica Rana, and piano player Stefania Argentieri – presenting Betthoven’s Trio in B flat major Op. 11 and some works by twentieth century’s Italian composers like Nino Rota (Trio for clarinet, cello and piano), Teresa Procaccini (Trio Op. 36), and Raffaele Gervasio (Capitoli Op. 132/CG 126).

2 “In Campo Aperto” (Open Space) concerts

This year’s novelty are the two “In Campo Aperto” (Open Space) concerts. Following the success of the 2019 Festival’s preview, which brought music in a field of olive trees, there are now two not-to-be-missed appointments that will offer a special experience in iconic places of the Salento, surrounded by nature, where there are no stages nor distances between interpreters and spectators. On Tuesday 20 July at 7:30pm at the Azienda Agricola “Taurino” in Squinzano (Lecce), well known for its olive trees, the audience may listen to some of the musicians involved in the main evening concerts, like Obiso, Petrova, Ferrández, the Rana sisters, and Vecchioni, next to the young talents of the Trio Chagall, made up of Edoardo Grieco (violin), Francesco Massimino (cello), and Lorenzo Nguyen (piano). On Thursday 22 July at 7:30pm at the Masseria “Le Stanzie” in Supersano (Lecce), known for its typical “te pendula” (hanging) tomatoes, the event will be an itinerant concert: a narrative path involving music and these very characteristic places. The protagonists will again be Obiso, Petrova, Vecchioni, the Rana sisters, together with Spada, and they will be joined by the very recently created Trio Eidos of Ivos Margoni (violin), Stefano Bruno (cello), and Giulia Loperfido (piano). The program of the two concerts is a surprise and will be revealed only at the end of the performance.

1 conversation about Stravinsky on the day dedicated to him

On the fiftieth anniversary of his death ClassicheFORME pays homage to Igor Stravinsky on Wednesday 21 July. Besides the evening concert dedicated to th