Anghiari Festival
Festival Director: Simon OverSaturday 14 - Sunday 22 July 2012
Southbank Sinfonia is invited to be the resident orchestra each July at the Anghiari Festival in Tuscany. The festival is warmly supported by the community in this historic hilltop village and also attracts many friends of the orchestra from the UK.
Anghiari is a lovely medieval town lying between two rivers, the Tiber and the Arno. The powerful thirteenth century walls made the town an invincible fortress which constituted an important reference point and kept the Tuscan flag flying during the many historical events that occurred in this delicately balanced border area. On the 29th June 1440 the famous Battle of Anghiari, which was subsequently painted by Leonardo da Vinci in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, reaffirmed Florentine rule in Tuscany. Anghiari and its surrounding area has seen the lives and work of the greatest men of the Renaissance who brought the seeds of the modern age from the land intra Tevere et Arno to the whole of Europe. The centuries that followed left their various marks on the churches and houses giving the town its own individual character strung along the steep ‘ruga’ (furrow or wrinkle) that cuts through its centre, making it unique and unmistakable.
The 2011 festival programme featured fifty works. The repertoire covered chamber music, orchestral works, choral music, and opera in concert performance. Two concerts were aimed at children and families. In collaboration with Bury Court Opera (and with the same cast as their acclaimed production) the festival staged a concert version of Verdi's Rigoletto. Vox Musica presented English music for voices and strings in addition to choral works by Brahms and Mozart. There were many delightful chamber pieces played in glorious corners of medieval Anghiari including, just for example, the Beethoven septet and the Vivaldi flute concerto.
We invite you to explore the 2011 programme and look forward to seeing you in Anghiari in July 2012.
