Ascona Music Festival

Ascona Music Festival
Casella Postale 683
CH 6903 Lugano, Switzerland
Email: festival@academyofeuphony.com

Following the great success of the first two editions, the Ascona Music Festival presents its third edition 2012, which is dedicated to the piano and entitled: The Voice of the Piano. “The Voice of the Piano” is also a Limited Edition of 64 CDs published by the classical label Edelweiss Emission and the International Academy of Euphony to mark the 25th anniversary of Daniel Levy’s recording career. The series gathers together a wide variety of recordings by Daniel Levy with a repertoire that includes music for solo piano, for piano with orchestra, chamber music and lieder.

For this celebration, the legendary piano makers Steinway & Sons have conferred a special acknowledgment to Daniel Levy as a “Steinway Artist” for his significant contribution to music.

“In 2012, Daniel Levy celebrates two [anniversaries]; his silver jubilee as a recording artist and his 20th Anniversary as a Steinway Artist. Steinway & Sons would like to express our cordial congratulations, and look forward to being a part of Daniel Levy’s wonderful musicianship in the future.” —Gerrit Glaner, Steinway & Sons

The concerts for the 2012 Festival and the release of the Limited Edition represent unique events in the international music scene on an artistic, aesthetic and cultural level, with a broad resonance that is certain to reach all Music lovers. The presentation of the Series will take place in Ascona, Switzerland in April, in addition to major European and American centres.

On Friday 4th May there will be an Extraordinary Concert that is dedicated to the bicentennial celebration of Richard Wagner’s birth. For this occasion Daniel Levy has chosen to perform a wonderful repertoire of unpublished original piano works by the great opera composer, and Franz Liszt’s piano transcriptions of scenes from the operas ‘Tristan und Isolde’, ‘Tannhauser’ and ‘Parsifal’.

As a compelling link with the human Voice in its purest song, on Friday 27th April there will be an unmissable evening of Lieder (Liederabend) with the acclaimed baritone Víctor Torres who will perform with Daniel Levy. The concert will include lieder by Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, in addition to classical songs of the highest level of poetic and musical beauty by Argentine composers such as Guastavino, Ginastera and López Buchardo.

The Piano is an instrument of extremely complex architectural design and golden proportions, combined with an acoustic and mechanical wisdom worthy of a sonorous ‘machine’ with thousands of voices. The devotion that the great musicians have dedicated to the piano, from its creation by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1698 until now, enabled the birth of the greatest works conceived by the human soul, giving it a voice, which over the past centuries has inspired and continues to nurture, bring comfort and beauty to millions of beings of all ages and planetary latitudes.

All the concerts will take place in the beautiful Church Santa Maria della Misericordia of the Collegio Papio in Ascona, Switzerland.

http://www.academyofeuphony.com/festival/