XXXIV Musical Weeks at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza 2025

The Musical Weeks at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza inaugurate the 34th edition, scheduled from May 18th to June 8th 2025: this year's festival offers a complex sound itinerary around the theme "The songs of the earth”, continuing to enhance the dialogue between different generations of musicians, languages and cultures. With the artistic direction of Sonig Tchakerian, the Musical Weeks confirm themselves as a point of reference for chamber music – and not only – transforming Vicenza into a lively musical crossroads for over three weeks.

The official start of the 2025 edition was anticipated by the 14th National Piano Competition – Lamberto Brunelli Award, organized in collaboration with the Brunelli family, which has promoted it since 2011. The winner of the 2024 edition, which took place on Sunday 13 April, was the Bolognese pianist Alessandro Artese.
“The songs of the earth” is not only the title of the 2025 edition, but the thematic arc that will guide the entire three-year programming of the Festival, until 2027. «An evocative title - he claims Sonig Tchakerian - which recalls a deep connection between culture, nature and tradition. A journey in which the Songs tell the spirituality of peoples from all over the world and in which music itself becomes thought and meditation".

As per tradition, the festival finds its chosen location in the magnificent Olympic Theater designed by Andrea Palladio, but it also extends to other symbolic places of the city. The 2025 Billboard It is divided into several sections: the Concerts at the Teatro Olimpico, on Youth Project, the Matinee at Palazzo Chiericati, Mu.Vi – Music Vicenza, L'Musical Offer for Schools, and the aforementioned Brunelli Competition. Also of particular note Sustainable andante, an initiative that promotes environmental protection through the annual planting of fruit trees in a public park in Vicenza.

The 2025 edition also confirms the attention to contaminations between classical and contemporary repertoire, with world premieres, original projects and collaborations with prestigious musical institutions. A festival that renews, year after year, its ability to combine cultural depth, artistic innovation and commitment to the future.

Mu.Vi – Music Vicenza

Sunday will be a day dedicated to popular music May 18, when Vicenza will come alive thanks to Mu.Vi – Music Vicenza, the urban section of the festival that will transform the city's buildings and cultural sites into sound spaces. From 11:00 to 18:00, the public will be able to attend performances dedicated to jazz and chamber music, in a true "festival within the festival" in which the barriers between genres dissolve, leaving room for the communicative power of live music.

Concerts at the Teatro Olimpico

The heart of the program remains, as per tradition, the Teatro Olimpico, flanked this year by the Teatro Comunale, where on Friday May 23 (9pm) we start with an event in collaboration with New Conversations Vicenza Jazz: protagonist the Tigran Trio, led by the Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan, with the project “The Bird of a Thousand Voices". 

Sunday May 25th (8.45pm), the festival returns to the Teatro Olimpico with Songs of the East, protagonists The Aquilani Soloists and the violinist Sonig Tchakerian in a program that ranges from Holst to Shostakovich. Also in the spotlight is the first Italian performance of the Concerto No. 1 for violin and strings by Tigran Mansurian, the greatest living Armenian composer and one of the most significant authors of our time. “Mansurian's music evokes the sense of that sacred ritual that pervades his entire repertoire. A story, that of the violin concerto, in which the depth of silence and reflection is explored, with a writing that is at once simple and solemn”, says Sonig Tchakerian, soloist of the evening.

The cycle continues on Friday 30 May (8.45pm) with “At the Same Time”, which brings together exceptional performers on stage: Sonig Tchakerian, Sarah Mazzarotto, Danilo Rossi, Mario Brunello is Andrea Lucchesini with music by Kancheli and Brahms. 

Grand finale on Sunday June 8 (8.45 pm) with the show “Proust – à la recherche de la petite phrase”, a fascinating encounter between music and literature. On stage Roberto Citran, Andrea Lucchesini, Marco Rizzi and Ettore Pagano, on pages by Debussy, Chopin, Hahn, Franck and Fauré.

Youth Project and Concerts for Schools

Ample space is also offered to emerging talents with the Youth Project, that Saturday May 31 is Sunday June 1st will see the pianist as protagonists respectively Rikako Tsujimoto, winner of the XIII Lamberto Brunelli Prize, and the violinist Maria Serena Salvemini, a promise chosen by the Higher Education courses of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia. Following, on Saturday 7 and Sunday June 8, the pianist will perform Gianluca Bergamasco, winner of the Venice Prize, and Maya Oganian, student of the Academy of Music Foundation of Pinerolo and Turin.

The program is also enriched by the initiative Musical Offer, the concerts dedicated to schools, which took place on April 11 and 30. A precious opportunity to introduce students to music, thanks to guided listening paths that ranged from baroque to jazz improvisation.

Matinee

There is no shortage of Matinee, an opportunity to immerse yourself in intimate and refined musical experiences in some of the most evocative locations in the city. Sunday May 25th (11.00 am) at Palazzo Chiericati, Roberto Loreggian will propose Adagiosissimo Bach – In the Italian Way, while Sunday June 8, always at Palazzo Chiericati (1am), theMusagete Ensemble will perform in world premiere Paths under the snow, a work of John Bonato on texts by Mario Rigoni Stern and narrator's voice Guido Barbieri. A poetic journey that translates into sound the “eight names of snow” that the writer, drawing on his Cimbrian linguistic culture and his direct experience, has wisely classified.