| THE RAVENNA FESTIVAL & RICCARDO MUTI BRING LIVE MUSIC BACK TO ITALY ON 21 JUNE |
| ► Italy’s first public concerts since the country’s lockdown on 9 March |
| ► This year’s re-imagined festival runs from 21 June – 30 July with up to 40 open-air events performed in the city’s 15th century fortress, Rocca Brancaleone for audiences of up to 250 |
| ► Riccardo Muti leads the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra for the opening performance, placing young artists centre stage |
| Sunday, 21 June 2020 at 9.30 pm CET Rocca Brancaleone Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra Riccardo Muti conductor Rosa Feola soprano Scriabin Rêverie Op. 24 Mozart Exultate, jubilate motet in F major, K. 165 Et incarnatus est from the Mass in C minor, K. 427 Symphony no. 41 in C major, K. 551, “Jupiter” |
| The Ravenna Festival brings live concerts back to Italy for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, offering much needed cultural hope from the country which suffered so badly at the outbreak of the current crisis. |
| With a re-imagined programme, featuring up to 40 events between 21 June and 30 July, the 31st edition of the Ravenna Festival will be launched with an open-air concert led by Riccardo Muti in the city’s 15th century fortress, Rocca Brancaleone. The full list of new programming for this year’s festival will be announced shortly. |
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| Riccardo Muti and the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra |
| photo credit: Silvia Lelli |
| For the opening concert Riccardo Muti will be joined by over 60 members of the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra and soloist Rosa Feola. All regulations on social distancing will be followed for the safety of the artists, staff and 250 members of the audience – for the latter masks, as well as a staggered access system, will be mandatory. |
| Alongside its usual programmes of international guest artists, the Ravenna Festival has always made a point of engaging and supporting the next generation of musicians and, as it is young artists whose livelihoods have been most severely threatened during the pandemic, the festival wanted to ensure that they would be the first to be offered engagements to play. As a result the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra, which was created by Riccardo Muti in 2004 as a training ground for young Italian professional musicians under the age of 30, will perform five different programmes this summer. |
| The Ravenna Festival was founded by Cristina Mazzavillani Muti in 1990 and its very first concert took place in Rocca Brancaleone conducted by Riccardo Muti. Returning to the same venue almost 30 years to the day under very different and extraordinary circumstances will be an important and emotional moment for all Italians, not least for the close-knit Ravenna community, for whom the festival has played an integral role in their lives. |
| The 2021 Ravenna Festival is already in planning and it is hoped that audiences from across Italy and the world will be able to return to enjoy music, theatre, opera, dance and much more in one of the country’s most beautiful and friendly cities. At the heart of the 2021 festival programming will be a celebration of Ravenna’s most famous honorary citizen – Dante Alighieri, who lived and died in Ravenna in 1321. |
| Click here to learn more about the RAVENNA FESTIVAL |
Ravenna Festival and Riccardo Muti bring live music back to Italy … from June 21 this year.
Congratulations! Wonderful to see live music back again. I have the most vivid memory of chancing on San Apollinare when I was 13. A tiny wedding was taking place, only the priest and the couple getting married, and shaft of light fell diagonally on the altar and the couple getting married. A very old man was playing “Ave Maria” on a viola accompanied by the organ. The image has stayed with me throughout my Life.