Bologna is preparing again this year to pay homage to one of its most illustrious sons, Ottorino Respighi, with the second edition of the festival entirely dedicated to the great composer. The Respighi Festival, designed by Maurizio Scardovi and organized by Music Together in collaboration with numerous city institutions and private sponsors, it represents a journey through the era of the early twentieth century in Italy, enhancing not only Respighi’s musical heritage but also the immense musical heritage and the cultural and social ferment of the early twentieth century in Italy.
The event will start on June 9th with a rich and varied program that looks to the future, aimed in particular at young musicians. Protagonists of inaugural concert in Piazza Maggiore, within the Bologna Portici Festival, in fact they will be the young talents of“GB Martini” Conservatory Orchestradirected by the Spaniard Sergio Alapont. The highlight of the evening will be the young soloist Laura Marzadori, violinist graduated from the Bologna Conservatory and became first violinist of the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra in Milan at just twenty-seven years old. A rarity like the Violin Concerto in A major P 49 by Respighi, and an anthology of great soundtracks of Italian cinema, which combines the homage to Riz Ortolani, Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone with a fundamental element declined in the present: the orchestral arrangements of the pieces in the program were in fact prepared by the students of Applied music of the Bolognese Conservatory.
The Festival will continue on September 22nd with inaugural concert at the Manzoni Auditorium, where the Conservatory Orchestra will perform the world premiere of a piece inspired by Respighi, selected from the compositions of the young students of the Conservatory. And a world premiere will also be the performance of Doric Concert Of Ottorino Respighi, whose orchestration and first edition – of the piece there was only a manuscript and incomplete version – is due to a brilliant composer and cellist like Giovanni Sollimawho will execute it with the direction of Donato Renzettiwith over fifty years of career in theaters all over the world.
On 25 September 2024, in collaboration with the Teatro Duse of Bologna and the Arturo Toscanini Foundation of Parma, a concert will be held in partnership with the Tuscan Festival. On the podium Francesco CilluffoChief Conductor of the Wexford Festival Opera, soloist one of the most acclaimed Italian violinists, Francesca Dego. The program, opened by the famous Night Of Martucciwill include in addition to Botticellian Triptych of Respighi and his poignant Autumn Poem for violin and orchestra, a major tribute to Ferruccio Busoni on the 100th anniversary of the disappearance, his Concerto for violin and orchestrato which Dego herself dedicated particular research, resulting in a highly appreciated recording for Chandos.
The final concert, scheduled for October 1st, will then bring the Festival to Sala Bossi for the first time, in the Conservatory where Respighi himself studied and graduated, with theSenzaspine Orchestra directed by Matteo Parmeggianand two soloists: the guitarist Eugenio Della Chiaradedicatee of around twenty compositions and the only musician to be awarded twice by the Rossini Foundation of Pesaro, and the organist Andrea Macinanti, author of Respighi’s complete organ recording. Three pearls of the repertoire such as the Serenade P 54 for small orchestra by Respighi, the Concert no. 1 for guitar of Castelnuovo-Tedesco and the Organ Concerto op. 100 by Bossi, with which the same author inaugurated the organ of the Hall which from 1942 will take his name.
Alongside the concerts, there are also many opportunities spanning the various arts, designed to get to know Respighi better, such as the appointment on 23 September at the Cinema Modernissimo, with the screening of three pearls of Respighi’s filmography, which will show us the impact of the Trilogy Romana on cinematographic imagery. Then there is a new edition of International conference on Respighiedited by the musicologist Piero Mioli (September 28 at the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna), with closing concert with the soprano Nikoletta Hertsak and the pianist Anna Toccafondiand there will be a special appointment between music, theater and cuisine with the Dinner at Casa Respighi, directed by Gabriele Dumascheduled for September 29th at the International Museum and Library of Music in Bologna, where there will also be a guided tour and the “mechanical concert”, entrusted this year to the melodic piano “Racca” that belonged to Queen Margherita.
Among the collateral activities, the Montese “A Country Ci Wants” Festival will dedicate a day to Respighi on 14 July, with visits and conferences. “Respighiana” will also be released in September 2024, the first Italian monograph on Respighi of the last 40 years, published by Musica Insieme.
Then there is already a nice preview for the future: the very long partnership of Musica Insieme with the Teatro Comunale of Bologna will generate a special project, namely the inauguration of the next edition of the Respighi Bologna Festival, on 21 September 2025, with an epochal event what is the presence of the great director Zubin Mehtawho enthusiastically accepted Musica Insieme’s invitation and will lead the Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna for the first time in a program that will combine famous Respighian pages with Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.
The festival sees the collaboration between the Musica Insieme Foundation and the main cultural institutions of the area, including the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the “GB Martini” Conservatory, the Cineteca di Bologna, the Arturo Toscanini Foundation, the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna and the Duse Theatre. The 2024 Edition has the support of the Municipality of Bologna, the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Ministry of Culture, and also lives thanks to the fundamental contribution of the Founding Partners Alfasigma and Pelliconi and of attentive and sensitive supporters to the territory such as Banca di Bologna and the Foundation Cassa di Risparmio di Bologna.
