The Second Edition of the MITO Settembremusica Music Festival Promises to Be Even Stronger and More Broad-Based Than the Boldly Pioneering First Edition
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The second edition of the MITO SettembreMusica music festival promises to be even stronger and more broad-based than the boldly pioneering first edition. That edition came to be thanks to streamlined decision-making and was lauded as a success. For anyone who failed to realize the festival’s extraordinary potential, MITO SettembreMusica 2007 turned out to be the unarmed prophet of the grand season marked by the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy and Expo 2015. Eschewing timidity and limitation, this called for thinking big, which inevitably led to planning beyond mere municipal confines. Thus, MITO SettembreMusica comprises in a single dream, in a single sound, the cities of Torino and Milano, and infects smaller outlying cities, such as Alessandria, Bergamo, Bollate, Bose di Magnano, Cremona, Lecco, Moncalieri, Monza, Morbegno, Novi Ligure, Pavia, Rivoli, Susa, Venaria. Indeed, the first edition of MITO SettembreMusica exceeded everyone’s expectations, also in terms of the balance and blending of the two main host cities’ capacities. Beyond the exploitation of local characteristics, combining the energy of cities leads to unpredictable outcomes. The experience of MITO SettembreMusica has given shape to projects, ideas and aims that had been circulating for years, and which had gone unfulfilled. Today we can speak freely of new and lasting bonds created between service companies, banks, symmetric cooperation among the events of 2011 and 2015, as well as other opportunities that are useful for our two communities, now enhanced by the upcoming activation of high-speed connections. But before MITO SettembreMusica became a stellar reality traveling at even higher speed, in the breath of its very first edition, attitudes and points of view were not so natural. It turns out that the people who saw the new-born international music festival as not merely a cultural event, but as something more important and profound, were right. In this they must be given credit, because truly, music is a form of language that brings people together and literally moves us from one place to another – emotionally and physically. As the second edition of MITO SettembreMusica inevitably moves from experience to consolidation, this year’s festival, making the most of the three decades’ worth of Torino-based Settembremusica festivals that laid the groundwork for the celebrations at hand, is the result of careful and unhurried planning and preparation, somewhat in contrast to the hectic pace of last year’s deployment activities. MITO SettembreMusica 2008 assures even greater focus on the international scene, as a big, wide-ranging festival must, with more than 200 high-level performances, offering concert-goers spectacular encounters with two of Europe’s most culturally endowed cities, as they make contact with the history, the monuments and the traditions of Milano and Torino. Which brings us to yet another pleasing result of the hard work put into the previous year’s edition – or the effects of MITO SettembreMusica beyond the music sector. MITO SettembreMusica has provided a virtual feast for university research and communications experts, and has served as a positive model for dialogue among urban centers. New ideas and proposals have come to the fore based on such a model, not only within the contexts of the two host cities, but in a variety of locations and contexts. May this year’s edition of MITO SettembreMusica succeed in the noble mission of making the method that has led to the creation of this festival even more convincing and exemplary. Letizia Moratti Sergio Chiamparino Mayor of Milano Mayor of Torino Vittorio Sgarbi Fiorenzo Alfieri Commissioner of Cultural Resources, Commissioner of Cultural Resources Milano and of the 150th Anniversary of Italian Unification, Torino 2 Alla seconda edizione del festival musicale, MITO SettembreMusica appare già forte e accresciuto rispetto all’audace e trepidante prima. Deciso in tempi velocissimi, e subito accreditato dalle reazioni di chi non ne aveva capito le straordinarie potenzialità, MITO è stato il profeta disarmato della grande stagione del centocinquantesimo dell’Unità d’Italia e dell’Expo 2015, nella quale non ci si può misurare con imprese timide e ristrette ma occorre pensare in grande e, inevitabilmente, oltre i confini municipali. A tal punto che abbiamo spinto MITO a stringere in un solo sogno e in un solo suono le due città di Torino e Milano e non solo, ma anche, per diffusione contagiosa, più piccole città operose come Alessandria, Bergamo, Bollate, Bose di Magnano, Cremona, Lecco, Moncalieri, Monza, Morbegno, Novi Ligure, Pavia, Rivoli, Susa, Venaria. La prima visione ha superato, anche nell’equilibrio e nella fusione delle due città principali, tutte le aspettative. Unire le forze di due o più città, oltre ai particolarismi e ai compiacimenti locali, produce effetti imprevedibili. L’esperienza di MITO SettembreMusica ha dato forma concreta a progetti, suggestioni e ipotesi discusse per tanti anni e mai fino a ora realizzati. Adesso si parla con concreta naturalezza di matrimoni tra aziende di servizi, istituzioni bancarie, cooperazione simmetrica tra 2011 e 2015 e di altre possibilità utili alle nostre due comunità, favorite dalla sempre più vicina attivazione del collegamento veloce. Ma prima che MITO si affermasse, con ancora superiore velocità, nel fiato di una sola edizione, atteggiamenti e predisposizioni mentali non erano così naturali. Avevano dunque ragione quanti vedevano nel nuovo festival musicale internazionale non solo un evento culturale, ma qualcosa di più importante e profondo. Avevano ragione, avevamo ragione a ricordare, più specificamente, che la musica è un linguaggio che accomuna e commuove anche nel senso letterale di “muovere con” predisponendo ragione ed emozione al rapporto con l’altro. Con questa seconda edizione si avanza, ineluttabilmente, dall’esperienza al consolidamento. L’edizione 2008, traendo sempre maggior vantaggio dalla trentennale esperienza delle edizioni torinesi del festival, è stata però preparata senza la fretta e l’urgenza della precedente edizione e sarà dunque in grado di presentarsi ancor meglio all’attenzione internazionale come un vero, grande festival in grado di offrire oltre duecento appuntamenti di altissimo impegno interpretativo, l’occasione per conoscere nella loro storia, nei monumenti, nelle tradizioni, due città tra le più ricche di cultura in Europa. Con il felice risultato che, dopo una così faticosa elaborazione della precedente edizione, si è tanto parlato di MITO SettembreMusica non solo negli osservatori di settore ma anche in quelli della ricerca universitaria, della comunicazione, come modello positivo di dialogo tra comunità urbane; e ne sono nate nuove idee e proposte fondate sulla medesima logica, non solo tra le nostre due città ma anche in altri e diversi contesti. Affidiamo a questa edizione del festival la nobile missione di rendere ancora più convincente ed esemplare il metodo che ci ha guidato alla sua creazione. Letizia Moratti Sergio Chiamparino Sindaco della Città di Milano Sindaco della Città di Torino Vittorio Sgarbi Fiorenzo Alfieri Assessore alla Cultura Assessore alla Cultura della Città di Milano e al 150º dell’Unità d’Italia della Città di Torino 3 The MITO SettembreMusica Vocation MITO SettembreMusica is a music festival born of the will of two great cities committed to developing various forms of cooperation, aimed at a vast listening audience made up of the culturally adroit and newcomers alike. Indeed, variegation of the MITO SettembreMusica public is increased by facilitated access to performances, more than half of which boast free admission, as well as by the fact that MITO SettembreMusica brings the music to the people - which is to say, concerts are held not only in traditional venues, but also in locations which, while being particularly suited to live music performances, do not often host such events, such as churches, courtyards, cloisters and museums. This year, MITO SettembreMusica gets under way September 1, at La Scala in Milano, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, and concludes in Torino September 25. MITO SettembreMusica 2008 promises 25 days of music in Milano and Torino, featuring more than 200 concerts scheduled pretty much around the clock. Considering the variety of musical genres presented, some overlapping may occur. But it’s nice to know that at the same time there’s live music being played at contemporary and baroque concerts, and concert-goers have only to choose which refined form of entertainment entices them at that particular moment. Yet, within this apparent anarchy, the many forms of music flow along precise currents. While each one of us is free to follow his or her own musical interests, according to one’s own peculiar and ingrained habits and predilections, I would like to suggest to the music lovers of both cities, sure to be enraptured by some of the world’s greatest orchestras, to break the mold by opening up windows which usually remain closed to them. Take in and enjoy the musical scenery! We serve up sounds from the Gypsies of Rajasthan who, after traveling half the world, wound up in Andalusia to create Flamenco. A few blocks down the road there’s the Gregorian Choir of Paris, with the intact purity of the dawn of our own musical civilization. Sometimes the old and new walk hand-in-hand. You’ll hear it for yourself at a concert featuring music history’s oldest requiem, composed by Ockeghem, which we dedicate to the memory of Karlheinz Stockhausen; or Jacopo Peri’s Euridice, which on October 6 of the year 1600 inaugurated in Florence the grand journey of musical theater - a journey that continues to this day, as shown by Harrison Birtwistle’s The Last Supper, George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill, and Luca Francesconi’s Gesualdo considered as a Murderer, all of which appear on the MITO SettembreMusica 2008 program. If music has the power to reflect a virtually infinite range of moods, from studiousness to revelry, from contemplation to triumphant celebration, as it so often alternates from one extreme to another, then the MITO SettembreMusica 2008 program of musical events promises experiences not to be missed.