Muti opens 'Roads of friendship'

(ANSA) - Ravenna, July 2 - 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.