Every year Ticino Musica proposes something new, while remaining faithful to a winning tradition. What are the most innovative aspects of this long-awaited 25th edition?
Over the years, Ticino Musica has consolidated its commitment to remain faithful to a tried and tested system, which translates into a festival that, starting with individual instrument lessons, branches out into an extremely dynamic reality, made up of concerts by great and young masters from all over the world who establish an extraordinary musical and human network. This system opens up vast horizons in the way of thinking of those who participate, and perhaps this is the most innovative side, 25 years ago as today. When it comes to the 2021 concert calendar, the most innovative events are the three concerts in which the guest grand masters will perform in a nonethnic formation as a miniature symphony orchestra, as well as the opera at the train station.
With which feelings are you approaching this important birthday of Ticino Musica and what are your expectations?
Ticino Musica is a part of me. If I think about not doing it anymore next year, I feel like I am doing a wrong to humanity! Maybe I am exaggerating, but as every year in 2021 I live Ticino Musica in a very idealistic way: I think it is one of the best ways that my colleagues and I have to transmit to the new generations a certain way to live music, made of enthusiasm, desire to do well, a lot of seriousness and at the same time the pleasure to have fun rehearsing and playing together. The three Nonetti events I mentioned earlier embody this ideal and this spirit, in the conviction that these experiences are of great enrichment for everyone.
25 years means a quarter of a century. How has the festival evolved through the generations of musicians who have made its history?
More than evolution, I would like to talk about continuity. Imagine a fountain: a column of water rises up from below, spraying and gushing in all directions, to fall and rise again in a continuous cycle. We do not see the individual drops of this beautiful fountain, but the movement. For me Ticino Musica is this: great masters come, great masters go, new recruits arrive and with their energy, their personality and their knowledge they feed this virtuous circle.
Ticino Musica combines internationality with a local dimension. What comes from this peculiar formula?
First of all, the capillary organisation of concerts in the most beautiful places in the Canton of Ticino, which are often intimate, is one of the aspects that makes Ticino Musica special for those who live it. A few years ago our press officer defined the Festival as an "itinerary"; and in the last two years I have received this request from a number of municipalities in the canton: "can we be part of the Ticino Musica itinerary?". This word seems more than appropriate, because it evokes the journey - and a journey can be that of the emerging musician who, after having studied with great masters all over the world, is still looking for new inputs and finds them in Ticino Musica. At the same time, the journey is that of the music itself, which, through the work of international personalities, passes through more than 17 municipalities in Ticino and Italian-speaking Switzerland. Some classical music enthusiasts discover Ticino Musica by chance, and from that moment on they plan their holidays in the canton precisely in conjunction with the Festival. Often, at the end of the concerts, I am approached by people who say to me: "This year was wonderful, I have been following you for 10 editions already! ”. And this makes me realise that our formula works and that it is worth continuing along this road, along this journey that is so "international" and so "local".
What are your projects and dreams for the second quarter of a century of Ticino Musica?
The biggest project is to maintain what is already there, continuing to feed that beautiful fountain that gushes so lively, always improving it. The dream in the drawer is the creation of the Ticino Musica Symphonic Orchestra, which is in the pipeline for 2022: if we succeed in this enterprise we will be able to say that we have diluted the 25th birthday celebrations over two editions, so as to celebrate not only the end of the first, but also the beginning of the second quarter century of Ticino Musica!