The musical islands and the “Bosco Claudio Abbado”: all the news about the 63rd edition!
Enjoy the concerts, slow down and appreciate the views around you. Then, alongside internationally famous musicians performing at the 63rd edition, adopt your tree and leave a tangible sign. Stresa Festival becomes climate-positive. Music upholds the environment and reafforestation is our own modest gesture toward Nature.
A musical archipelago of islands, like all the types of music on today’s stages: “jazz”, “classic”, “antiqua” and the multifaceted “young”. In the midst of all this is a wood bearing the name of Claudio Abbado, who we remember ten years from his death, and to whom Stresa Festival, one of the most prestigious international summer music events, is dedicated this year.
Mario Brunello, Artistic Director of Stresa Festival, remembers him vividly: “Claudio Abbado was a true visionary, a rare Maestro always looking toward the future. He traced out numerous paths and has left just as many open for the music to come: Abbado always managed to reconcile the figure of the artiste with that of a socially committed person, and one of the paths he combines – that Stresa Festival wants to follow – takes us into the world of Nature, with respect for the planet, convinced that music too has its part.” Brunello concludes: “Stresa Festival is bringing to life one of Abbado’s visions, planting a whole new wood dedicated to the Maestro in the Parco Campo dei Fiori, on the other side of Lake Maggiore. The first trees have already been found, and with the help of our public we can plant a lovely big wood”. Mario Brunello
In collaboration with
From 16 to 28 July there is a jazz island and a young island, with Ludovico Einaudi, Egberto Gismonti, Simone Locarni, Jazzrausch Bigband, Luigi Grasso/Florian Weber, Le Nozze di Figaro.
The July concerts start off with two strong personalities, quite different, who can be viewed as emblems of ‘music that feeds on all sorts of music’: Egberto Gismonti and Ludovico Einaudi. The highly original Brazilian pianist and guitar player – the first on stage, on Tuesday 16 July in the Catapulta, always occupies a space somewhere between jazz and classical music, with his own use of traditional music from the Amazon.
Ludovico Einaudi, who we shall hear on 17 July in Stresa Festival Hall, proposes In A Time Lapse Reimagined, looking back ten years at when his luckiest album came out, and ‘re-imaginating it’ with a different group of instruments.
Focused more closely on jazz, on 19 July there will be a trio starring Simone Locarni, from Verbania, whose talent has already earned him recognition and important awards, the latest being the 14th European Young Artists Jazz Award from Burghausen in Germany.
Another ‘exported’ Italian talent is the sax player Luigi Grasso, who will be playing on 20 July together with the one of the most interesting European pianists of his generation, the German Florian Weber. The next day is the turn of another German group. The spectacular German Jazzrausch Bigband plays a special tribute, between orchestral jazz and dance rhythm, to the Austrian composer Anton Bruckner. This years is the bicentenary of his birth, and Stresa is marking it with several items.
In July there are three “young” appointments, all in the Sound of Wood in Gignese. On the 24th there will be an American guitar player, Trace Bundy, a specialist on the six-string acoustic instrument. On 2 July we shall hear the talented singer and songwriter from Catania, Anna Castiglia. Then on the 26th comes Krisma TV, thought up by Bienoise, a composer of electronic music, with the vocalist Olga Condry and the video artist Fabio Brusadin, who will be celebrating the anomalous new wave imagined by Christina Moser and Maurizio Arcieri, with Krisma, one of the best known Italian electropop bands.Completing the July program, on Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 July at Orta a drammaturgic reduction for string quartet and singers, of Mozart’smuch-loved Le nozze di Figaro will be staged, directed by Gianmaria Aliverta, who for more than 12 years now has been travelling the world, with VoceAllOpera, showing off this new way to stage opera.
From 17 August to 6 September the classic island and the isola antiqua will feature Il Giardino Armonico, Mario Brunello/Virgilio Sieni, Trio Chagall, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/András Schiff /Myung-Whun Chung, Isabelle Faust, Giovanni Sollima, Yulianna Avdeeva, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Barbican Quartet, Ditta Rohmann and other artistes.
In partnership with 
The 63rd edition of Stresa Festival, in its traditional form, will start with a concert by the Giardino Armonico, a prestigious baroque music ensemble led by Giovanni Antonini. For this occasion, the Russian violinist Dmitry Smirnov will play music by Haydn and Vivaldi.
That will be followed the next day by the instrumental group La Tempête, founded and conducted by Simon-Pierre Bestion. They present Vespro, A Jubilant Sound Experience, based on Monteverdi’s masterpiece Vespro della Beata Vergine. This promises listeners a sensory immersion centered on powerful sound.
On Monday 19 August, in Villa Ponti in Arona, the program offers a duo, with Teodoro Baù (viola da gamba) and Andrea Buccarella (harpsichord). They will play music by Corelli, Bach and Händel.
On 21 and 22 August, in the captivating setting of the Hermitage of Santa Caterina del Sasso overlooking Lake Maggiore at Leggiuno, the Hungarian cellist Ditta Rohmann will interpret the traditional ‘mediations’ on Bach’s cello suites.
A special idea marks the launch of the isola classic program, a co-production with Ravenna Festival and Opera Estate Festival from Bassano del Grappa. Un amico pays tribute to Ezio Bosso’s music, stemming from the unusual collaboration of the cellist Mario Brunello, Maria Semeraro on the piano, and Virgilio Sieni‘s dance company (on the 24th).
Stresa Festival 2024’s rich program will include a star like the Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva (25 August), winner of the Warsaw Chopin contest in 2010. Her program will combine Chopin and Prokofiev. On Tuesday 27 August the mezzosoprano Isabel Pfefferkorn will perform with a quartet of cellos on the Isola Madre. Their broad repertoire ranges from Purcell to Richard Strauss, Piazzolla to the Queens and Adele.
On 28 August the British Barbican Quartet, much appreciated in Stresa last year, will offer music by Purcell, Ravel and Beethoven. On the 30th the Norrlands Nations Kammarkörr conducted by Francesco Acquista, a 34-voice choir, will pay further homage to Anton Bruckner at the Festival.
Another ensemble we are pleased to welcome back – one of the most important appointments of the 2024 edition – is the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, under their conductor Myung-Whun Chung, and the pianist Sir András Schiff, with a program of Beethoven and Brahms (31 August).
The September concerts will start with the Trio Chagall, on 1 September, with music by Haydn, Weinberg and Mendelssohn. On September 3 the cellist Giovanni Sollima, at Villa Bryner in Lesa will tackle the barcassa, a very unusual musical instrument built on a real boat – known locally as a nassarola) with three six-meter-long strings.
The last tribute to Bruckner will be paid on 4 September, by a string quintet that calls itself Illumina. It dates from 2015 in San Paolo del Brazile, on an initiative of the American viola player Jennifer Stumm. The aim was to involve young musicians with famous international artistes, in a widely known festival that gives thousands of people access to live music every year.
Stresa Festival will be closed on 6 September by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra with two outstanding soloists, the violinist Isabelle Faust and Kristian Bezuidenhout on the fortepiano. They will play two of Beethoven’s masterpieces, Concerto per violino and the Concerto per pianoforte no. 3.
Special thanks to all the supporters and sponsors of the 63rd edition of Stresa Festival!
The institutional organisations include the Ministry of Culture, Piedmont Region, and Stresa municipality, followed by the Foundations Compagnia di San Paolo, CRT and Comunitaria VCO-Ente Filantropico.
Herno has been the main sponsor of Stresa Festival for several years, together with Vinavil.
Particular thanks go to the “Amici del Festival”, those music-lovers who never fail to give the Festival their support!
The Ticket Office is located in Via Carducci 38 – Stresa.
Opening hours:
from Monday to Friday 10:00 am – 1:00 pm / 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
