" Introduction"

41st Autunno Musicale 2007

Thought in Music

Before the official programme of the 2007 edition of our festival is out, I would like to introduce you to the guidelines which will be presented at the next board meeting of the foundation. The entire programme will be following the same thread, which has been named as follows, Trilogy: Thought in Music.
More than ever, I think it is necessary to start again thinking and acknowledge which artists and works laid the basis for the evolution of ideas. The festival is divided into three sections: sacred music, soloist and chamber music and finally a cycle not just about three musicians, but about three great thinkers of different nationality. This edition will also start with a special project focusing on a very particular theme dealing with our region: The Alps, the humanised mountains.

I thought about initiatives on a three-year basis choosing a theme binding together the whole programme and offering differences or analogies from the chronological or stylistic point of view. We won�t just have masterpieces, but also fringe activities which are essential for a better comprehension of the programmed works and that will take place at the recently opened �Centro Studi Vivere la Musica�.
The opening of the festival is connected to the traditional Meetings of Sacred Music, as the closing event of the international project Monastic orders, defenders of European culture will be taking place in those days. The project, supported by the EU, will take place from September 12-16 with several events about themes like Monasticism, Music and Culture: Silence and Reflection.
Representatives from all monasteries participating in the project will gather for the seminar: �Monasteries, places of culture and prayer�. It will be possible to be accommodated in the same venue where the seminar will be taking place.
On the same dates Gregorian chant concerts and an important exhibition about Hrabanus Maurus - the first medieval encyclopaedist - will take place in the Basilicas and other historical venues of Como.
On 8 September the Ars Brunensis Choir will give an opening concert. The cycle will be closed by concerts with sacred and secular works by the European Union Youth Baroque Orchestra with a programme entirely dedicated to the myth of Orpheus.

The second part of the festival will include the participation of important European ensembles and a concert by SIXE, a piano concert series in Villa Olmo with international soloists. These concerts "Italians like Italy" will include works by Listz, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Tschaikowsky and others estimators of Italy who produced works inspired to the imagery of our country.

The third cycle is entirely dedicated to the theme �Thought in music� and will include performances of �words and music�. The focus will be on three great thinkers, who in their different historical contexts went �against� and expressed with words and actions their innovative relationship to civil society and environment: David Thoreau, representative of the American transcendentalism; the Lebanese writer Khalil Gibran who heavily influenced last century youth; the Italian father David Maria Turoldo who lived the trouble of squaring his spiritual vision with society.

The final cycle, inside a three-year programme, will focus on a theme which has never been deeply analyzed by its cultural standpoint: The Alps, the humanised mountains.
Research will be run in order to realise live concerts and performances, exhibitions, seminars and stages. A large number of �Comunit� Montane� (territorial associations in mountain regions) of Lombardia are already supporting the project together with provinces and municipalities, not only in the mountains area, but also in the Po Valley in order to highlight both the different cultural backgrounds and at the same time to shed light on the cultural process that derived from these regions, which is part of the European historical development.
The first edition in 2007-2008 will focus on 6 themes regarding the whole alpine region: The first human settlements � The Medieval cycle, i.e. Challenging the mountain � Baroque, Neoclassicism, and Romanticism � Popular culture between tradition and actuality � Contemporary creativity.

Hoping to see many of you at our events, let me send you my best regards.

The Intendant
Italo G�mez