ZMELKOOW
Autobiographical Operetta CONFESSIONAL– hot and naughty

At their Nova Gorica concert, Zmelkoow, the very definition of a rock’n’roll circus, which they are exceptionally proud of, will present their autobiographical operetta CONFESSIONAL– hot and naughty. The operetta presents acoustic versions of predominantly autobiographical songs while their blabbering and dancing between songs reveal their views of the world and universe, their traumas and phobias, the backgrounds that led to the emergence of the texts and some other hidden gems from the life and work of their philosophically divergent rock gang. Whether they will reveal themselves to the very end or not will depend on two things. Firstly, whether they will manage to find costumes that will be beautiful enough to keep wearing throughout the entire show and secondly whether they will gather enough willpower to regularly attend the gym until the concert, so that they will have well defined biceps and ‘six packs’. After all, they do not want to embarrass themselves.

Concert Season Subscription 2023/24 – 43rd concert season/4th concert

ALBAN BERG ENSEMBLE WIEN
Sebastian Gürtler, violin
Régis Bringolf, violin
Subin Lee, viola
Florian Berner, cello
Alexander Neubauer, clarinet
Silvia Careddu, flute
Ariane Haering, piano

An artistic and creative vision, openness to everything innovative and a unique instrumental line-up are the foundations of the Alban Berg Ensemble Wien, which revives the mentality of the Second Viennese School. The assembly of selected musicians, members of the renowned Hugo Wolf Quartet and established Viennese instrumentalists, winners of international competitions who play in the best orchestras of Austria and Germany, is undoubtedly one of the great chamber ensembles today. The ensemble, formed in 2016 and named after the Austrian composer and pianist Alban Berg, does not limit itself stylistically. Instead, it draws from a vast source of chamber music, past and present. The core of the repertoire are compositions from the turn of the century – works by “hyper-romantics” on the cusp of modernism that (furthermore) explore new sound and timbral possibilities: these include a stripped-down version of Mahler’s Adagio that opens up new harmonic horizons, Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony, which follows the direction of the composer’s new musical identity, and Schnittke’s rarely heard elaboration of the second movement of Mahler’s unfinished quintet. Firm and clear sound imbued with tension, but never intrusive, an inviting purity that allows the listener to internalise the music, a new concert program, all this and more awaits us at the fourth concert’s season ticket in May.

PROGRAMME:

G. Mahler: Quartet movement for piano, violin, viola and cello in A minor (fragment)
A. Schnittke: Quartet for piano, violin, viola and cello – 2nd movement (Scherzo from Gustav Mahler’s Sketches)
A. Schönberg (arr. A. Webern): Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E major, Op. 9
G. Mahler (arr. M. Harry): Adagio from Symphony No. 10

Festival of Mediaeval and Renaissance Music Flores Musicae 2023

Raitknecht 1692 – music from the late 17th century from all over Europe

DOMEN MARINČIČ (Slovenia), baroque viola da gamba (J. Ch. Hoffmann, Leipzig, approx. 1740)
SAM CHAPMAN (UK), theorbo

Multi-instrumentalist Domen Marinčič is not only one of the most outstanding interpreters of old music in our country but also one of the greatest masters of viola da gamba and Baroque cello in Europe. In 1997, he won the first Bach-Abel competition in Köthen, Germany, and has since regularly performed and recorded as a soloist and with leading European ensembles for old music. In a duet with English theorbist Sam Chapman, he’ll prepare a music programme especially for the Flores Musicae Festival with music composed by various composers from all over Europe in the late 17th century such as Dietrich Buxtehude, John Blow and Marin Marais, as well as music by an unknown composer from Ljubljana dating back to 1692. He’ll play an original instrument made around 1740 in Leipzig by famous manufacturer Johann Christian Hoffman.
 

Festival of Mediaeval and Renaissance Music Flores Musicae 2023

Hidden songs

HALEH SEYFIZADEH (Iran), voice
GOLFAM KHAYAM (Iran), guitar
MARCO AMBROSINI (Italy), nyckelharpa
BOR ZULJAN (Slovenia), lute

The Persian classical music tradition dates back to the period of the Sasanid Empire before the arrival of Arabs in the 7th century, although it was already developing before that time. It has always been created in close contact with the poetry of great masters, such as Omar Khayam and Hafis, performed by troubadours and mystics from this incredible culture. Singer Haleh Seyfizadeh is one of Persia’s most outstanding younger musicians, and can also be seen in the film The Female Voice of Iran (2020). Already for many years, guitarist Khayam has been exploring Persian classical music while giving it a new, contemporary touch. Along with the extraordinary Italian musician Marco Ambrosini playing the nyckelharpa, they both also serve as musicians for the renowned ECM publishing house. In a quartet along with a lute player and the festival’s artistic director, Bor Zuljan, they’ll premiere a new programme: between old and new, the East and the West.

Festival of Medieval and Renaissance Music Flores Musicae 2023

Kind of Satie

PAOLO PANDOLFO (Italy), viola da gamba, narrator
MICHELANGELO RINALDI(Italy), accordion, piano, toy piano
ANDREA PANDOLFO (Italy), trumpet and flugelhorn, narrator, voice, artistic direction

Kind of Satie is a sound never heard before, surprising in its ability to suggest and its transparency, achieved through the encounter of the electroacoustic viola da gamba with the modern trumpet and the flugelhorn, the accordion, the piano, the toy piano and the voices: “the universe of words” that Satie loved to write down as subtext or as bizarre annotations of expression in the scores of his songs, is revealed here.

Kind of Satie is composed of original pieces directly inspired by Satie’s brilliant compositions, the music (and words) by Erik Satie, free improvisation and surprising forays into the baroque repertoire for viola da gamba.

The pieces of “Le Trois sonneries de la Rose+Croix” (1892) and “Sports et Divertissements” (1914), composed by Satie in a time span that goes between the fin de siècle and the beginning of the First World War, are the matrix of the project and more generally a source of inspiration for the construction of form and content of our artistic creation.

What is current in today’s world – increasingly disoriented between new wars and the global climate crisis – in Sports et Divertissements which tell the story of the “cowardly carefreeness” of the beautiful and good French bourgeoisie a few weeks after the start of the First World War? How current and shareable is for us musicians Satie’s militant breakdown of musical conventions, often so emptied of meaning in his era as in ours?

Andrea Pandolfo

CASTLE HARMONIES 2024 – 13th Concert Season/ 3rd Concert

TRIO CHAGALL

Edoardo Grieco, violin
Francesco Massimino, cello
Lorenzo Nguyen, piano

At the last of the three concerts of the Castle Harmonies, we will be able to listen to the Trio Chagall, which recently attracted the attention of the musical public as the winner of the second overall prize (the first prize was not awarded) at the 20th International Competition of Chamber Ensembles with Piano, the Trio di Trieste Award, where the ensemble also received the Daria de Rosa special award for the best performance of a Schumann composition, the Fernanda Selvaggio special award for the best trio in the competition and the Young award for the most promising young finalists. With an average age of 20 years, Trio Chagall is the youngest chamber group ever awarded in the history of the said competition. These are just the latest in a string of successes for the trio, founded in 2013 at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Music in Turin. The ensemble’s name is a tribute to the famous painter Marc Chagall, who is still a profound source of inspiration for them both because of his musical ties and extraordinary expressive power in using colours. The musicians are currently studying under the direction of Antonio Valentia and Trio Debussy. At the same time, they are attending a university master’s degree in chamber music with Trio di Parma and Pierpaolo Maurizzi. The trio regularly performs in Italy, reaching other prestigious concert stages worldwide.

Programme:
J. Haydn: Piano trio in A major, Hob. XV:35
F. Filidei: “Corde vuote” for violin, cello and piano
M. Ravel: Piano trio in A minor

LORA MARKOVA, violin

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, Lora Markova started studying violin at the age of 5 in the National School of Music “Lyubomir Pipkov” in Sofia, in the class of the most prominent Bulgarian pedagogue Blagorodna Taneva. Since 2012 she is a student of prof. Kolja Blacher at the Academy of Music “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin. She is a laureate of numerous First Prizes from national competitions such as “Young Virtuosos” 2013, “Dobrin Petkov”2013, “Nedyalka Simeonova”2014, and “Grand Prix” form “Music and Earth” 2018, “Hopes, Masters, Talents”2019, Nedyalka Simeonova” and others. Lora is also the holder of the Annual Prize of “Stoyan Kambarev” Arts Foundation for 2021. Her international achievements include various major prizes from internationally recognised competitions. She has been appearing as a soloist in many festivals and concerts at home and abroad. In Bulgaria Lora is a sought-after solo artist and performs at concerts with leading Bulgarian philharmonic orchestras in Pleven, Vidin, Vratsa, Shumen, Sliven, Sofia in collaboration with conductors Emil Tabakov, Grigor Palikarov, Yordan Kamdzhalov, Maxim Eshkenazy, Pavel Zlatarov, Tsanislav Petkov, Kalina Vasileva. She is also committed to chamber and ensemble music playing. She is often invited by some of the outstanding musicians of the new generations but also by prominent names in classical music to share the stage in different festivals and events in Germany, Finland, Switzerland and Bulgaria. Inspired by ensemble playing, Lora is a frequent guest in different music Festivals, she also played alongside Boris Garlitsky, Thomas Riebl, Alexander Zemtsov, Andrey Baranov, Stefan Tarara, Sergey Malov, Kyril Zlotnikov and the members of Stradivari Quartet.

Programme:

N. Paganini: Caprice n. 17

J. S. Bach: Dalla Partita n.3: Preludio, Loure, Gavotte en rondeau

H. W. Ernst: Last rose of Summer

D. Tabakova: Pirin

CASTLE HARMONIES 2024 – 13th Concert Season/ 2nd Concert

 
TRIO NOORDUNG
Matjaž Porovne, violin
Petra Greblo, cello
Miha Haas, piano

Trio Noordung brings together top Slovenian academic musicians. Cellist Petra Greblo and violinist Matjaž Porovne are members of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, while pianist Miha Haas teaches at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana. All three are established soloists and members of various ensembles at home and abroad. The ensemble was founded in 2021 with the aim of long-term cooperation and contribution to permanent chamber ensembles in our cultural space. Members have been participating in various projects since their student years. Their wide range of experience covers the performance of standard chamber, symphonic, and contemporary experimental music. They decided to transfer their approach to intertwining classical tradition with folkloristic melodies and more popular genres to the piano trio line-up for this concert evening.
 

PROGRAMME:
A. Dvořák: Trio in E minor, Op. 90, “Dumky”
A. Piazzolla: Verano Porteño (Summer in Buenos Aires)
A. Pärt: Mozart-Adagio
D. Shostakovich: Lento and Allegretto from Trio in E minor, Op. 67
F. Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 9
A. Piazzolla: Primavera Porteña (Spring in Buenos Aires)