Ritratti Festival | XXI Edizione

Certainly! Here's the translation of the text from Italian to English:

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“Secret Codes - In Praise of Folly”
from June 21 to August 10 in Monopoli (Puglia)

Cristina Donà and Saverio Lanza, Claudia Lamanna, Miriam Prandi, Gabriel Ureña, Marcelo Nisinman, among the protagonists.
On June 21 - Music Festival Day - a concert for the city on the parvis of the Cathedral Basilica of Monopoli with the Symphony Orchestra of the “Nino Rota” Conservatory.

A musical experience capable of intertwining art and landscape, memory and experimentation, and promoting the talent of emerging young artists alongside established artists on the international scene. The Ritratti Festival, directed by Antonia Valente, returns to Monopoli from June 21 to August 10 with an edition this year titled “Secret Codes - In Praise of Folly” featuring 12 evening concerts and the sections Ritratti Exhibit, Breakfast with Bach, Ritratti sui tetti/Find Me, Kids Workshops, Ritratti Talk, and two Spin-Offs in September, in addition to the usual surprise Ritratti à la carte.

In a festival always shaped and forged by its community, the musicians of the 21st edition will guide the audience to explore secret codes and mysteries of art. “The objective is to pay tribute to one of the most mysterious and unfathomable components of art,” explains Antonia Valente, artistic director and founder of the Festival. “We speak of the mystery and transcendence to which it gives access, both to the interpreters/creators and the passionate consumers. A state of sensory alteration more powerful than consciousness itself, to the point that the ancients thought of ‘manipulating’ the masses through the cathartic act of Theater. What disturbing demon unites Billie Holiday, Paganini, or Francisco Goya? It is the duende, 'guardian of a hidden treasure', DUEN DE CASA, master of the house.”

Each event is an invitation to discover music in a new way, site-specific events that can enhance the Puglian historical heritage and make classical music truly accessible to all. From author conversations to concerts, from sound installations to workshops, with concerts held in locations not normally accessible to the public, with a program rich in cross-contaminations, Ritratti confirms itself as one of the most original and fascinating musical events of the southern summer.

The heart of the Festival is the artists who have accepted the artistic direction's invitation to participate in the musical program as the resident ensemble, which this year includes: flutist Margherita Brodski, clarinetist Angelo Montanaro, horn player Emanuele Urso, oboist Gianluca Tassinari, violinists Sara Dionisia Zeneli and Lorenzo Rovati, violists Nora Romanoff Schwarzberg, Anna Serova, and Giuseppe Russo Rossi, cellists Alexei Zhilin, Miriam Prandi, Gabriel Ureña, and Giovanni Crivelli. Also, double bassist Nicolò Zorzi, percussionists Jona Muscia, Diego Basile, and Rosa Montañes Cerdá, pianists Marcos Madrigal, Alessandro Stella, Stephanie Gurga, and Irene Alfageme, and Antonia Valente herself.

The schedule of events in July is packed, inaugurated by the preview of the 21st edition entrusted to Cristina Donà and Saverio Lanza with Spiriti Guida - a reinterpretation drawing from Lucio Battisti to the Bee Gees to Claudio Monteverdi, from the Beatles to Sinead O’Connor, passing through Franco Battiato, Suzanne Vega, David Bowie and others (July 21); El Duende with bandoneonist Marcelo Nisinman, singer Anne-Lise Binard and narrator Crescenza Guarnieri (July 24) and the Ritratti Festival Ensemble. All this in the natural setting of Lama Sottile, Santo Stefano.

The Cloister of Palazzo San Martino will host: the twin concert with the La Habana Clásica Festival with pianists Marcos Madrigal and Alessandro Stella in dialogue with some musicians in residence at Ritratti 2025: La Habana Classica - The Utopia of Music (July 26); the multimedia event dedicated to The Book of Dreams by Federico Fellini with music by Prokofiev (Trapeze Quintet and Overture on Hebrew Themes) and Rota (Nonet and Small Musical Offering) (July 29) performed by the resident ensemble. In the darkness - Concert in the dark is the title of the concert (August 2) entrusted to the hands of American pianist Stephanie Gurga, with Lorenzo Rovati and Sara Dionisia Zeneli, Nora Schwarzberg Romanoff and Giuseppe Russo Rossi, Gabriel Ureña and Giovanni Crivelli engaged in the sextet masterpiece Verklärte Nacht by Arnold Schönberg. To weave the thread connecting all the pieces proposed, a work commissioned to electronic composer and performer Gabriele Panico, dedicated to poets Dehmel, D’Annunzio, Campana, Buzzati. The festival will continue with the eagerly awaited usual appointment with live soundtracking of silent film masterpieces, at the Teatro Radar Roof Garden (August 5). Following this (August 7), Ritratti proposes Codici di Amicizia, an evening dedicated to composer Dimitri Shostakovich, fifty years after his disappearance: at the center of the program, his XV Symphony, the most beloved by David Lynch, in an unusual chamber version, performed by Jona Muscia, Diego Basile, Rosa Montañés Cebriá, Lorenzo Rovati, Alexei Zhilin, Stéphanie Gurga. And finally Eau de Ravel with harpist Claudia Lamanna (August 10) and musicians Margherita Brodski, Angelo Montanaro, Sara Dionisia Zeneli, Lorenzo Rovati, Giuseppe Russo Rossi and Miriam Prandi, an eagerly awaited guest for the first time at the Festival. All concerts will start at 21:00.

The opening of the festival is set for June 21 (always at 21:00), on Music Festival Day. The symphonic orchestra of the “Nino Rota” Music Conservatory of Monopoli will kick off with a free concert for the city on the parvis of the Cathedral Basilica of Monopoli. Music by Hector Berlioz, Francis Poulenc, George Bizet. During the evening, the Ritratti Prize - “Maria Giannulo” scholarship, established last year, will also be awarded in memory of the renowned festival supporter.

New initiatives on the calendar include “Breakfast with Bach” - breakfast with the Master, to start the day in the company of the great father of Music (July 24 and 31, and August 7), the Ritratti sui tetti - “Find me” or secret dates on rooftops with views of the historic center, to be discovered like in a treasure hunt (July 25 and 31, August 6 and 9). And then the third edition of “Ritratti Exhibit - Angeli, Sogni, Muse”, the exhibition section dedicated to contemporary art, which this year relies on the presence of photographer Francesco Zizola, and also includes three “concerts in the exhibition” (July 4 - 23 - 30); the workshop for children TWICE UPON A TIME... Theater without words for “Ritratti Kids” (July 22, 29, and August 3), the “Ritratti talk” (July 16, 23, 30, August 1 and 8), the “Ritratti à la carte” on the always awaited Apecar set up as an itinerant stage, and two “Spin-off” appointments in September (September 1 with Giorgia Angiuli and September 7 with Eugenio Finardi).

Ritratti is made possible with the support of MiC, Pact, and the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Monopoli, and relies on the active collaboration of an important network of partners: Teatro Radar/Teatri di Bari, Asp-Romanelli Palmieri, Misericordia Monopoli, Associazione Amici di San Salvatore.

The Festival is also made possible thanks to the tax relief program to support new patronage, the Artbonus, for which thanks are given to Hello Apulia, Puglia Real Estate Management, Sime, Puglimpianti Fasano, Fratelli Gentile, Farmacia San Francesco da Paola, Studio Legale Enrico Pellegrini, Bcc Alberobello, Sammichele and Monopoli, Dimola srl.

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Web: www.ritrattifestival.it