Izmir Festival to open with Verdi and Wagner

IZMIR - Hürriyet Daily News

Adrineh Simonian will perofrm with Amarcord Wien at the festival.

The 27th edition of the International İzmir Festival will begin on June 6 with the “Verdi and Wagner Gala Concert” at the Ephesus Ancient Theater. The concert will mark the official opening of the festival, organized by the İzmir Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSEV).

The first concert of the festival was performed by the 189-year-old New York Philharmonic Orchestra on May 2. The oldest orchestra in the United States, the New York Philharmonic was in the city for the first concert of its 2013 Europe-Spring tour.

The İzmir State Opera and Ballet (İZDOB) soloists, orchestra and choir will perform in the concert, which will feature the arias of Verdi and Wagner, whose 200th birthdays are celebrated this year. The orchestra will be conducted by Tulio Gagliardo Varas and the choir chief will be Hans Joachim Gallus.

The next event of the festival will be Minguet Quartet on June 14. The group takes its name from Pablo Minguet, an 18th century Spanish philosopher who tried in his writings to make the fine arts accessible to the masses. It is currently among the internationally most popular younger string quartets and performs at major European concert venues. The ensemble performs classical, romantic and modern music, promoting the latter by premiering numerous 21st century compositions.

Dance Theater of Harlem, a leading dance institution of unparalleled global acclaim that uses the art form of classical ballet to change people’s lives, will perform on June 28. Inspired to bring new opportunity to the lives of the young people in the Harlem neighborhood, where he grew up after the example of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Arthur Mitchell and the late Karel Shook founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem in the basement of a church in 1969. Through performances by an internationally acclaimed company, training in a world-class school, and participation in a multi-faceted arts education program, the company has made a difference in the world for 43 years.

A concert on July 4 will feature Kremerata Baltica and Mischa Maisky, who has the distinction of being the only cellist in the world to have studied with both Mstislav Rostropovich and Gregor Piatigorsky. As an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist during the last 25 years, Maisky made well over 30 recordings with various orchestras. In the concert he will perform with Kremerata Baltica, which was founded in 1997 by the violinist Gidon Kramer and comprises 23 young players from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The orchestra is supported by the governments of the three Baltic States.

Last three concerts

The festival will also feature Amarcord Wien & Adrineh Simonian on July 9. Founded in 2000, the ensemble Amarcord Wien has achieved a reputation celebrated by audiences around the world. It will be accompanied by mezzo soprano Simonian, who sang the title role in Gassmann’s “La Contessina” at the Schauspielhaus Wien in 2002.

Hille Peerl & Lee Santana & İzmir Barok will take the stage on July 11. Musician and gamba-player Peerl travels the world, playing concerts and recording as a solo artist or with her main partner, the lutenist and composer Santana. They mostly perform in the field of 17th and 18th century music. The duo will perform with İzmir Barok.

Apollon Musagete Quartet will perform the closing concert of the festival on July 16. Winner of first prize and several other awards at the International Music Competition of the ARD in 2008, the quartet soon went on to give debut performances at the Berlin Philharmonie in March 2010 as part of the “Rising-Stars” cycle, having been nominated by both the Vienna Konzerthaus and Musikverein.

The festival venues include Ahmet Adnan Saygun Art Center, Ephesus Ancient Theater, Bergama Basilica, Celsius Library, Ephesus Odeon, Kültürpark Open Air Theater as well as Kemeraltı Abacıoğlu Han.