Belvedere di Villa Rufolo

Sabato 16 luglio
Belvedere di Villa Rufolo, ore 20.00
Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Direttore Zubin Mehta
Antonio Meneses, violoncello
Musiche di Beethoven, Cajkovskij
Posto unico € 50

Programma

Ludwig van Beethoven
Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (Le creature di Prometeo), ouverture ed estratti

Petr Ilic Cajkovskij
Variazioni su un tema rococò per violoncello e orchestra, op.33

***

Sinfonia n.4 in fa minore, op.36

Zubin Mehta
Born in Bombay in 1936, he received his early musical education from his father, Mehli Mehta, an esteemed violinist and founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. After a short period of preparatory studies in medicine, in 1954 he went to Vienna where he attended Hans Swarowsky’s conducting courses at the Akaydemie für Musik. In 1958 he won the Liverpool International Conducting Competition and the Tanglewood Summer Academy Award; since 1961 he has been called to conduct the Wiener and the Berliner Philarmoniker and the Israel Philharmonic, orchestras with which he boasts over 50 years of collaboration. Music Director of the Montreal Symphony (1961-1967) and of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (1962-1978), he was nominated, in 1977, Music Director of the Israel Philharmonic, of which he became, since 1981, Music Director for life: in October 2019 leaves the leadership after more than 50 years and he is appointed Director Emeritus. In 1978 and for 13 years, the longest period in the history of the orchestra, Zubin Mehta became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, while from 1985 to 2017 he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, of which he is currently Honorary Director for life.
He made his opera debut with Tosca in Montreal in 1963 and since then he has collaborated with the major opera houses and festivals in the world, including the Metropolitan of New York, the Wienerstaatsoper, the Covent Garden of London, the Teatro alla Scala of Milan, the Chicago Opera House, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Salzburg Festival. Between 1998 and 2006 he has hold the role of Music Director of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. In October 2006 he inaugurates the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia and he is President of the Festival del Mediterrani: in the Spanish city and in Florence, he conducts a memorable Der Ring des Nibelungen with the Fura dels Baus, followed by other new productions of the Wagnerian cycle at the Chicago Opera House and at the Bayerische Staatsoper. Among the prizes and honors received by Zubin Mehta, are to be remembered: the Nikisch-Ring left him by Karl Böhm; the honorary citizenships of Florence and Tel Aviv and the appointments as Honorary member of the Wienerstaatsoper (1997), of the Bayerische Staatsoper (2006) and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Wien (2007). He is also Honorary Director of the Wiener Philharmoniker (2001), the Munich Philharmonic (2004), the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2006), the Staatskapelle Berlin (2014) and the Bayerische Staatsorchester (2006), which he conducts in tour in Srinagar in Kashmir, and of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples (2016), as well as Director Emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2019).
In 2008 he received the “Praemium Imperiale” from the Japanese imperial family; in 2011 his name was inscribed on the Walk of Fame on the Hollywood Boulevard; in 2012 he obtained the Cross of Merit of the German Federal Republic, while in 2013 the Indian government awarded him the Tagore Award for cultural harmony.
Zubin Mehta encourages the discovery and promotion of new musical talents all over the world: together with his brother Zarin, he is co-president of the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation in Bombay, thanks to which more than 200 children are educated in western classical music; similarly, the Buchmann-Mehta music school in Tel Aviv gives young musicians the opportunity to grow, in close relationship with the Israel Philharmonic, as a new project for teaching young Arab-Israelis in the cities of Shwaram and Nazareth with local teachers and members of the Israel Philharmonic. Recently he has conducted at the Teatro del Maggio in Florence numerous symphonic concerts and the operas Otello by Giuseppe Verdi, Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Tosca in a concert form and La forza del destino by Giuseppe Verdi (many of them were also broadcasted in streaming).
Recent tours at the Salzburg Festival with the Maggio ensembles for a symphonic concert and Tosca in concert form; and for concerts in Athens and Dubai for EXPO 2020.
Most recently he was nominated as Florence Ambassador for Culture and a European tour in Hamburg, Linz, Vienna, Luxembourg City, Muri and Dortmund with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra. He opens the hall dedicated to him in the new Auditorium of the Teatro del Maggio with two concerts.

Antonio Meneses
Violoncello
Nato in Brasile, a Recife, nel 1957 da una famiglia di musicisti, Antonio Meneses ha iniziato gli studi di violoncello all’età di dieci anni. A sedici anni ha incontrato il famoso violoncellista Antonio Janigro che lo ha portato in Europa per seguire i suoi corsi a Düsseldorf e Stoccarda.
Nel 1977 Antonio Meneses ha vinto il primo premio al ‘Concorso Internazionale ARD’ di Monaco e nel 1982 ha ricevuto il primo premio e la medaglia d’oro al ‘Concorso Tchaikovsky’ di Mosca.
In Europa, America ed Asia, Antonio Meneses si è esibito con le più rinomate orchestre del mondo a Berlino, Londra, Amsterdam, Vienna, Parigi, Praga, Mosca, San Pietroburgo, Monaco, New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. e Tokyo.
Ha collaborato con direttori del calibro di Claudio Abbado, Gerd Albrecht, Herbert Blomstedt, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Daniele Gatti, Neeme Järvi, Mariss Jansons, Herbert von Karajan, Riccardo Muti, Eiji Oue, André Previn, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Kurt Sanderling, Yuri Temirkanov e Christian Thielemann.
Antonio Meneses è stato membro del leggendario Trio Beaux Arts dall’ottobre 1998 al settembre 2008. Ha collaborato con il Quartetto Vermeer e si esibisce in duo con pianisti quali Menahem Pressler e Maria João Pires.
In campo discografico, Antonio Meneses ha effettuato due registrazioni di grande successo per Deutsche Grammophon con Herbert von Karajan e i Berliner Philharmoniker. Ha poi registrato le opere complete per violoncello di Villa-Lobos (Auvidis France e Bis), David Popper e C.P.E. Bach (Pan Records).
Antonio Meneses ha inciso le ‘Sei Suite per violoncello’ di Bach, le opere complete per violoncello e pianoforte di Schubert e Schumann, un CD Beethoven con Menahem Pressler, un CD del Concerto per pianoforte di Haydn e il Concertino di Clovis Pereira con la Royal Northern Sinfonia e un CD (nominato ai Grammy Awards come «Best Classical Instrumental Solo») con i Concerti di Elgar e Gál insieme alla Royal Northern Sinfonia e Claudio Cruz. Con la stessa formazione e direttore è stato inciso, nel gennaio 2017 per AVIE, un CD con i Concerti di Schumann e Volkmann e le Variazioni Rococò di Tchaïkovsky.
Il suo primo CD in duo con Maria Joao Pires, The Wigmore Hall Recital, per Deutsche Grammaphon, è stato pubblicato nel 2013.
In aggiunta agli appuntamenti concertistici, Antonio Meneses tiene regolarmente masterclass in Europa (Madrid – Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofia; Siena – Accademia Musicale Chigiana), in America (Domaine Forget) e Giappone (Tokyo University), oltre che insegnare dal 2008 presso il Conservatorio di Berna.

Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Founded in 1928 by Vittorio Gui as the Stabile Orchestrale Fiorentina, from its beginning the Orchestra plays in concerts and operas of the former Teatro Comunale of Florence, now Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Today the Orchestra is still considered one of the finest orchestras both by conductors and audiences from all over the world.
In 1933, on the birth of the Festival, it takes the actual name of Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. After Gui, the principal conductors were Mario Rossi (1937) and Bruno Bartoletti (after the Second World War). Fundamental chapters in the Orchestra history are the years from 1969 to 1981, were the position of princpal conductor was given to Riccardo Muti, then to Zubin Mehta, who became Principal conductor from 1985, and then to Fabio Luisi from 2018 to 2019. Currently, and since 2006, Zubin Mehta is the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino’s honorary director for life and he is a a focal and fundamental part of the life of the Maggio as the fatherly guide of the institution itself.In its history the Orchestra del Maggio was conducted by greatest conductors such as: Victor De Sabata, Antonio Guarnieri, Gino Marinuzzi, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Tullio Serafin, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Issay Dobrowen, Jonel Perlea, Erich Kleiber, Arthur Rodzinski, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Thomas Schippers, Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Carlo Maria Giulini, Georges Prêtre, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Carlos Kleiber, Georg Solti, Riccardo Chailly, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Seiji Ozawa, Daniele Gatti, John Eliot Gardiner.
So many composers conducted a premiere of their music pieces at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino such as: Richard Strauss, Pietro Mascagni, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinskij, Goffredo Petrassi, Luigi Dallapiccola, Krzysztof Penderecki and Luciano Berio. Since the fifties, the Orchestra made numerous recordings, also for radio and television, which received major awards including, in 1990, the Grammy Award. At the eightieth anniversary of its foundation, the Orchestra receives the Fiorino d’Oro of the City of Florence.
Recent tours at the Salzburg Festival for a symphonic concert and Tosca in concert form, conducted by Zubin Mehta; in Athens, at the Grafenegg Festival, in Budapest and Dubai for EXPO 2020. Recent the European tour with Zubin Mehta in Hamburg, Linz, Vienna, Luxembourg City, Muri and Dortmund and the two inaugural concerts of the new Auditorium of the Teatro del Maggio.