The Ravenna-based 'Roads of
friendship' music festival is opening its 22th edition in Kiev
as part of the project that has brought music to symbolic sites
worldwide since 1997.
The Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra led by Riccardo Muti is
performing as well as the Orchestra and Choir of the Ukraine
National Opera and young musicians from Mariupol for a double
concert that will connect the Ravenna festival to one of the
oldest city of the East.
Italian and Ukrainian artists performed Sunday in Sofiyska
Square in Kiev and will play on July 3 at the Mauro de André
palace in Ravenna, united by Giuseppe Verdi's music - from the
Stabat Mater to Nabucco - and by Aaron Copland's Lincoln
Portrait with the narrating voice of John Malkovich.
"The idea was born over 20 years ago in Sarajevo", said Muti.
"We were moved by the tragedy that was taking place".
"We wanted to bring a sign of fraternity from Ravenna - music
is the best way to do it".
"Together with over 100 musicians we flew over the Adriatic
aboard military planes to perform in a city which was a victim
of bombardments. It was the beginning of a trip which, over the
following years, took us to extraordinary places and gave us the
opportunity to perform with artists from different cultures and
religions. It is an annual pilgrimage that reminds us of the
universality of the language of music and the connection that
unites all of us".
The festival this year takes place under the banner 'We Have
a Dream' - an homage to Martin Luther King to celebrate music
and the arts.
Muti has long been an ambassador of culture worldwide,
conducting Italian orchestras and choirs in unforgettable
concerts in, among other cities, Beirut, Jerusalem, Moscow,
Erevan, Istanbul, New York, Cairo, Damascus, Nairobi,
Redipuglia, Tokyo and in 2017, Tehran.
This year's festival kicked off with a first concert in
Sofiyska Square, in front of the Cathedral. Young performers
with the Cherubini orchestra played with the artists from the
country's main opera house, the Ukrainian National Opera House
Taras Shevchenko.
The 150-year-old opera house is named after an icon of
Ukrainian modern literature.
Award-winning US actor John Malkovich on July 3 will be the
narrator of the Lincoln Portrait - a composition for orchestra
written by Copland in 1942, which includes readings from
documents regarding legendary US President Abraham Lincoln.
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