News

MusMA for Franz Liszt

28 July 2011

Festival Ljubljana supports young Slovene artists and pays tribute to the great Franz Liszt Festival Ljubljana is a proud supporter of the international project Music Masters on Air, or MusMA, which was initiated two years ago by ten European festivals in order to help performers and composers of the younger generations promote their work. This year, the participating artists will also mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great composer and pianist Franz Liszt. Ten European festivals sign their names under the project MusMA: the Ljubljana Festival, the Klara Festival (Belgium), the Granada Festival (Spain), the Bemus Festival (Serbia), the Moravian Autumn Festival (The Czech Republic), Wratislavia Cantans (Poland), the Musica do Estoril Festival (Portugal), the Emilia Romagna Festival (Italy), Hungarofest (Hungary) and the Ankara Festival (Turkey). With the support of the European Union, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the European Festivals Association (EFA), MusMA promotes contemporary classical music and provides a platform for composers of the younger generations and young performers just embarking on their musical careers to make contact with the broadest possible circle of listeners, enabling them to reveal their diversity and innovativeness. Young artists have many fresh ideas and visions, but lack frequent opportunities to express them. Each of the supporting festivals commissions a new composition, which is given its premiere performance at the annual meeting of MusMA - we are glad to report that next year’s meeting will take place in Ljubljana - and is later also recorded on a compact disc. In the first year, Tadeja Vulc contributed the composition Stara Ljubljana, while this year composer Nana Forte is participating in MusMA with A Broken Car, which will be performed at this year’s MusMA meeting in Granada by Slovenia’s superb pianist Nina Prešiček. On 1, 2 and 3 August, Nina Prešiček, Zoltan Peter and Ivan Skrt will appear within the framework of the Liszt Mini Festival, which is dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great composer and pianist. While the programmes by the latter two pianists are made up primarily of works by Liszt, Nina Prešiček will prepare a concert of European premieres, including the first Slovene performance of Nana Forte’s A Broken Car, which was commissioned by the Ljubljana Festival for the project MusMA. The Liszt Mini Festival will conclude on 16 August with a performance by the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra from Hungary. Amongst other works, the programme will include Liszt’s Malédiction for piano and orchestra, which the composer performed himself as a 16-year-old in London. In Ljubljana, the work will be performed by pianist Francesco Nicolosi. We will also hear Brahms’s popular Hungarian Dances, as well as the Flute Concerto in D minor by Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, the eldest of J. S. Bach’s sons, which will be performed by Claudi Arimany, who is regarded as one of the best flutists in the world. After the extraordinarily success of its opening weeks, the Ljubljana Festival will conclude its July programme with a concert by the Chinese Philharmonic Orchestra Hangzhou (27 July), an orchestra that critics have named “the meteor” due to its high quality and stunning artistic growth, as well as the International Orchestra Maribor 2012 (31 July), which is made up of 96 young musicians from 27 countries. In August, we will have an opportunity to treat ourselves to the virtuosity of Jovan Kolundžija (4 August), who is regarded as one of the most successful violinists from the region of former Yugoslavia, as well as the pianist Vladimir Mlinarić (17 August), who, amongst other works, will perform the Macedonian Dances in memory Slovene composer Alojz Srebotnjak. August will also resound with the sound of three recognised trios. Trio Brahms (5 August) will perform three of Brahms’s trios for piano, violin and cello. KotorArt (8 August) is made up of excellent musicians: violinist Roman Simović, concertmaster of the celebrated London Symphony Orchestra, clarinettist Aleksandar Tasić, soloist in many of the best European orchestras, and pianist Ratimir Martinović, the artistic director of the Montenegrin festival KotorArt. For their performance in Ljubljana, they have selected works by Stravinsky, Khachaturian and Bartók, as well as by the contemporary Montenegrin composer Žarko Mirković. Trio Elegiaque (9, 10 and 11 August) will present Beethoven’s musical legacy for piano trio. For more information about the Ljubljana Festival, please contact: Hermina Kovačič, Tanja Wondra Public Relations 01 / 241 60 12 Hermina.Kovacic@ljubljanafestival.si Tanja.Wondra@ljubljanafestival.si www.ljubljanafestival.si