Armenia – The Roads of Friendship: Ravenna-Yerevan
The Roads of Friendship is «an annual pilgrimage that reminds us of the universality of the musical language and the common bonds between us all», Riccardo Muti has often asserted.
The artistic project created with the Ravenna Festival is a message of brotherhood which since 1997, with the first historic concert in Sarajevo, Maestro Muti has carried in symbolic places of ancient and contemporary history, often wounded by war or natural disasters.
This year, the destination of the Roads of Friendship is Yerevan, where on July 4th Riccardo Muti conducts the “Luigi Cherubini” Youth Orchestra and the Armenian State Chamber Choir at the national Opera House, after the Italian performance at the Ravenna Festival on July 1st.
The programme of the concert wants to ideally honour the painful spirituality and the tragic history of that Country and its people: sacred compositions by Haydn (Te Deum in C major for choir and orchestra), Mozart (Kyrie in D minor K. 341), and Schubert (Mass no. 2 in G major for soloists, choir, strings, and organ D. 167).
The solo voices are Italian and Armenian: tenor Giovanni Sala, soprano Nina Minasyan, and baritone Gurgen Baveyan. On organ, Davide Cavalli. The choirmaster of the 32 voices of the Armenian State Chamber Choir is Robert Mlkeyan.
The concert in Erevan concludes with the world premiere of Purgatorio by Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian, a work commissioned by Ravenna Festival on the occasion of this 32nd edition dedicated to Dante.
The Italian premiere of Mansurian’s Purgatorio will arrive in Ravenna on September 12 for the solemn concert ending the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante.
The Roads of Friendship Ravenna-Yerevan was made thanks to the precious commitment of the Embassy of Italy in Yerevan, with the support by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the collaboration of ATER Fondazione.
Ravenna Festival