Meeting place for seasoned music lovers and virtuosos whose genius is beyond doubt, the 66th Menton Music Festival begins its performance on July 31 on the forecourt of Saint-Michel Basilica with Pinchas Zukerman and the Camerata Salzburg Orchestra.
For its 66th edition, the Menton Music Festival will take place this year from July 31 to August 13, 2015, at three venues in the city: the Forecourt of Saint-Michel Archange Basilica; the Jean Cocteau Museum; and the esplanade Francis-Palmero.
For his third year at the helm of the Festival, artistic director Paul-Emmanuel Thomas, a young conductor with an international career, has prepared a program (mixing orchestral concerts, chamber music, recitals, great soloists…), divided into 3 series: The Great Performers at 9:30 PM; the 6:00 PM Concerts and the Off at 9:30 PM.
After the official opening of the Festival (July 31 at 9:30 PM), in the Great Performers series, one can hear the Camerata Salzburg with Pinchas Zukerman on violin and conducting, in a program dedicated to Stravinsky, Mozart, Haydn, and Tchaikovsky; followed by a chamber music concert with Christian and Tanja Tetzlaff on violin and cello with Lars Vogt on piano (Brahms and Dvorak on August 1); a violin and piano recital with Janine Jansen and Kathryn Stott (Brahms, Poulenc, Bartok, Kreisler, De Falla on August 2); two baroque concerts, the first with the ensemble Europa Galante and Fabio Biondi on violin and conducting (Handel, Vivaldi, Bach on August 5) and the second with the Basel Chamber Orchestra and countertenor Franco Fagioli (Tribute to Louis XIV: Lully, Ariosti, Handel on August 7); an unusual and original evening with Xavier de Maistre on harp, accompanied by magician Stefan Leyshon (Four hands โ Music and Magic on August 8); a recital with soprano Olga Peretyatko and Giulio Zappa on piano (excerpts from operas by Rimsky-Korsakov and Rossini on August 9); a piano recital with Khatia Buniatishvili (Ravel, Liszt, Stravinsky on August 10); a chamber music concert with Fazil Say on piano, the Minetti String Quartet, and Josef Niederhammer on double bass (Say, Schubert, Mozart on August 11); and, for the closing of this 66th Festival, the complete Piano Concertos of Chopin with Nikolai Lugansky and the Sinfonia Varsovia conducted by Alexander Vedernikov (August 13).
Artists participating in the 6:00 PM Concerts at the Cocteau Museum are: pianist Yevgeny Sudbin (August 2); the Hermรจs Quartet, string quartet (August 4); Kotaro Fukuma, piano (August 6); Pierre Gรฉnisson, clarinet and David Bismuth, piano (August 7); Alexandra Soumm, violin and Ismaรซl Margain, piano (August 9); Trio Talweg, piano, violin, cello trio (August 10); Bรฉatrice Rana, piano (August 11); Janina Baechle, mezzo-soprano and Anne Le Bozec, piano (August 11).
Admission is free for the 3 Festival Off concerts: July 30 at 9:30 PM, in pre-opening of the Festival, Pavel ล porcl, violin and the ensemble Gipsy Way will perform popular tunes, pieces by Sarasate, Brahms, Khachaturian… and film music; on August 3, one can hear the VOCES8 vocal ensemble, a young British group whose repertoire ranges from early polyphony to jazz, including original arrangements of Queen or Oasis…; and, on August 6, the brass quintet Smart is brass (Kompanek, Shostakovich, Bernstein, Gershwin, Weill, Cosma, etc.).
