Friday July 19, 2024, from 9.30 a.m. to 8 p.m., the La Scala Academy musicians will be the protagonists of Music in the air, an initiative that combines art and nature in the scenery of Val Masino. Realised with the contribution of the Lombardy Region in collaboration with the Municipality of Val Masino, the Val Masino Tourist Office and the Val di Mello Nature Reserve.
As Culture Councillor Francesca Caruso highlights,
“The Lombardy Region, which has always been at the side of the La Scala Academy as a Founding Partner, is enthusiastic to support this initiative that masterfully combines art and nature in an evocative place of our territory. This event celebrates the talent of the Academy's young musicians and offers the opportunity to discover and appreciate the scenic wonders of Val di Mello. Music and nature come together to create a unique experience, able to excite and bring the public closer to beauty and culture."
A day discovering Val di Mello, Val Masino's scenic pearl, with six Alpine Guides who will accompany the participants, divided into as many groups, along a flat itinerary, accessible to all, that will touch on four stages.
At each stage, the audience will be able to enjoy a solo concert of the La Scala Academy's Advanced course for orchestra musicians young students. The route runs along the Masino river, then Torrente Mello, and it allows one to get to know an enchanting nature reserve, surrounded by large granite boulders, the destination of several climbers, dotted with small lakes, fir and beech forests, flat areas and small villages of stone houses.
Only 120 kilometres from Milan, Val di Mello will become the stage for the Academy's students, who will perform solo instrument pieces, each of them repeating their musical performance three times. Departures will be staggered, starting at 9.30 a.m. until 11 a.m., from San Martino.
Grand finale around 6 p.m. with the Academy's Orchestra, which, under Pietro Mianiti's direction, will perform an enthralling music programme with a strong naturalistic inspiration at the Area Alpini Val Masino, in front of Sasso Remenno, the largest rocky monolith in Europe, fifty metres high and with four walls crossed by dozens of climbing routes.
The concert will open with Edvard Grieg's Suite n. 1 op. 46, one of the two symphonic suites that the Norwegian composer took from the stage music he wrote for Ibsen's Peer Gynt. It will be followed by Vltava, the most popular of Bedřich Smetana symphonic poems, dedicated to the river that flows through Bohemia. Then, after Modest Mussorgsky's A Night on Bald Mountain in Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakov' version, the concert will end with the sparkling Ouverture from Rossini's last opera, William Tell.
The initiative is part of the Milan Cortina 2026 Cultural Olympiad, a multidisciplinary, plural and widespread programme to promote Olympic and Paralympic values through culture, heritage and sport.
“Among the main objectives of the Cultural Olympiad”, says Domenico De Maio, Education and Culture Director of the Milan Cortina 2026 Foundation “is the enhancement of initiatives capable of integrating artistic and cultural languages with outdoor activities and movement, as well as being able to combine the promotion of the territory, the mountains and healthy lifestyles. In this sense, Music in the Air represents a unique and engaging experience of enjoying the territory”.
All participants will receive a free water bottle in which they will find a Q-R Code that, by referring them to the Val Masino tourist information website, will enable them to deepen their knowledge of the valley.
We would like to thank the clothing, accessories and footwear brand CMP, dedicated to the outdoor world of the F.lli Campagnolo S.p.A. group, as technical sponsor of the project.
For more information:
Ufficio Turistico di Val Masino
Tel. +39 334 39 99 708 (from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.)
www.valmasino.info – E-mail | info@valmasino.info
