Heat and music in Salvador (Brazil) with the Festival de Verão
For those planning winter holidays in the Caribbean sun, the Blues Festival on the island of Mustique. Riccardo Muti with his 'L. Cherubini' Orchestra in the Opera prison
The cold winter weather means that January is also the month that invites you to escape to the warmth: for those planning 'holidays in music', the 31st edition of the Blues Festival is kicking off in Mustique, and the Festival de Verão in Salvador (Brazil). Riccardo Muti continues the decades-long journey of the Vie dell'Amicizia, with the aim of bringing hope, dialogue and brotherhood through music. With the Orchestra 'L.Cherubini' founded by him, they are now in the prison of Opera (Mi)
Salvador (Brazil)
On 24-25 January, the Festival de Verão. The programme includes tributes to Forró - present both in the 'Dominguinho' project and in Wesley Safadão's show with Elba Ramalho - and to MPB with Caetano Veloso and Ney Matogrosso; to Ivete Sangalo's axé, Péricles' romantic samba, and to the different pagoda schools of Léo Santana and Belo, in a show created especially for the festival. A few years ago, the festival went from being a regional event to one that attracts the whole of Brazil. In each edition we see how different styles can coexist and dialogue, from samba to forró, from MPB to axé, without losing their own identity.
Mustique (Grenadines)
From 21 January to 4 February at Basil's Bar the 31st edition of the Blues Festival. In the lineup John Primer, Murali Coryell, Matt Gest, Robbin Robson, Chuck Lanford, Scott Milici, Peter O'Brien, Dan Rabinovitz, Giles Robson, Jennlee Shallow, Ian Siegal, Akil Augustus.
Opera (MI)
Since 1997, Ravenna Festival's Le Vie dell'Amicizia have been sowing seeds of hope, dialogue and brotherhood through music, brought as a gift to territories wounded by conflicts, divisions, natural disasters, and in cities symbolic of ancient and contemporary history. Once again, those seeds bear fruit: after the concerts in Lampedusa and Ravenna in 2024, with instruments made from the wood of migrants' barges, on 10 January Riccardo Muti and his "L.Cherubini" Youth Orchestra visit the Milan-Opera prison, where those instruments were born in the violin-making workshops accessible to inmates thanks to the commitment of the Fondazione Casa dello Spirito e delle Arti and its Metamorfosi project. The Cherubini again use the 'instruments of the sea' for a programme that opens with Vivaldi's Concerto for strings and harpsichord and continues with Verdi, from the Sinfonia from Nabucco to the Ave Maria from Otello with soprano Rosa Feola, and the 'Va' pensiero' with the choir of 'La Nave di San Vittore' (one of the activities of the therapeutic ward run by the Asst Santi Paolo e Carlo) made up of inmates and volunteers from the Associazione Amici della Nave, joined for the occasion by opera artists from the group 'Ex Scaligeri di buona volontà'. During the event inmates from Opera, San Vittore and Bollate will read personal thoughts and poems.
