Cusio Early Music Festival

27th Cusio Early Music Festival

Orta San Giulio (NO) 19 – 27 June 2010 San Giulio Island - Casa Tallone

Eight days of musical magic on Lake Orta with the Cusio Early Music Festival. The Festival, now in its 27th edition, will take place again this year in the evocative location of San Giulio Island, offering a breathtaking show every evening thanks to the great music of artists of international standing

Once upon a time San Giulio Island, which today is an authentic tourist jewel, was an inhospitable place, populated solely by snakes that slithered among the weeds. Legend tells that it was the holy brothers Giuliano and Giulio who discovered it after arriving in the Cusio area and having built their ninety-ninth church in Gozzano. While the works were in full swing, Giulio went as far as the shores of the lake and there saw a small island infested with snakes, where he decided to found the hundredth church. Giuliano settled in Gozzano while Giulio reached the Island sailing on his own cloak, drove out the snakes and built there a church dedicated to the Twelve Apostles. Today Orta San Giulio is one of the most beautiful villages in Italy, and its early music festival is an event of strong cultural and tourist appeal.

The Cusio Early Music Festival takes place right here, on this enchanted island that emerges from the darkness of the lake in all its splendour, bathed in light. Torches at the doors, ushers in period costumes, candles welcome the visitor into the intimate eighteenth-century dwelling of Casa Tallone. The location, which bears the name of the great artistic family of the Tallones, recalling in particular the internationally renowned luthier and piano maker Cesare Augusto Tallone (1895-1982), is ideal for hosting this Festival which from the very beginning had acquired worldwide resonance for its high performance level and the variety of styles offered to the listener.

The succession of evenings in fact offers varied glimpses of musical life across the alternating centuries: joyful Baroque symphonies of mandolins; songs on the follies of love; intradas, sonatas and ballads to be played with trumpets, shawms and bombards; medieval music of the Italian and European tradition, entrusted to the most diverse instruments: strings, wind, percussion, present in great number and dialoguing with one another with brio and extreme pleasantness to the ear.

PROGRAMME:

Basilica of San Giulio on San Giulio Island – Orta S. Giulio (NO) 19 June

Sala Eleonora Tallone on San Giulio Island

20,22,23,24,25,26,27 June at 9.15 pm

19 June

Cantori Gregoriani

"Benedict and Gregory. With Gregorian chant at the roots of European culture"

20 June

ENSEMBLE TERRA D'OTRANTO

"Taratàntara. The dance of the little taranta" Sources of ancient tarantellas between Spain and Puglia

22 June

DUO D'ARPE DAVID

"The magic harp. The harp duo in the 18th century"

23 June

SCHOLA ROMANA ENSEMBLE

"Love at court and tavern tales"

24 June

I MUSICI DI SANTA PELAGIA

"The Italian style in 18th-century London"

25 June

ENSEMBLES LES NATIONS

"The garden of delights. Music for banquets and feasts and praises of wine in the Renaissance"

26 June

ENSEMBLE ORIENTIS PARTIBUS

"Cacciando per gustar". Hunting songs and Madrigals of the Italian Trecento

27 June

RADU MARIAN (sopranist) and SVETLANA PEKARSKAYA (harpsichord)

"The queen voice: arias and cantatas between the 17th and 18th centuries"

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