MUSIC AMONG THE PEAKS – THE SOUNDS OF THE DOLOMITES FESTIVAL IS BACK

Perhaps the best way to describe the festival is by what it is not. The festival is not easy; each musician and member of the audience is required to hike to the location of the performance. The performances are also not ordinary; new ideas and sounds run along the paths and walls every year, and new locations and scenery are added to the itinerary. The unique dialogue between artists, audiences, and nature is one aspect that remains constant through the years.

This year, the festival consists of 18 events from 28 August to 29 September, giving participants a chance to discover the changing seasons in the mountains alongside leading musicians.

Some highlights of this edition are below.

The 29th edition of I Suoni delle Dolomiti begins in the wake of world music or rather fado: Wednesday 28 August at Malga Tassulla, in the natural amphitheatre that encloses Pian della Nana, in the northernmost sector of the Brenta Dolomites, Carminho, one of the most talented fado singers of the latest generations, who also collaborated on the soundtrack of "Poor Creatures" by Jorgos Lanthimos.

On Sunday 31st in Val di Fiemme, the first close encounter with classical music is scheduled, with Die Cellisten des Mozarteum Salzburg, or "The Cellos of the Mozarteum", a group of young but already established musicians, students at the prestigious University of Salzburg, guided and directed by Giovanni Gnocchi, an internationally renowned soloist. The concert on 3 September will have a different register, on the 2,200 meters of Località Tresca, in Val di Fiemme, in the presence of the Latemar Group and Monte Agnello: the Bandakadabra, a sort of surreal "pocket orchestra" made of wind instruments and percussion, will propose a mix of disparate musical languages, showing off an overwhelming comic-theatrical verve.

The meeting between music and literature will be at the centre of the trek, three days of sounds and words, from 4 to 6 September in the rocky heart of the Pale di San Martino, which will build an ideal bridge between the mountains of Trentino and the American Badlands, through the words of the writer Paolo Cognetti and the songs of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash and other stars and stripes legends, interpreted by the voice and guitar of Pietro Brunello and the cello of Mario Brunello. At the end of the trek, the Prati Col clearing will host the meeting between the stories told between paths and refuges and the reality of that type of America, uncomfortable and difficult, in which Micah P. Hinson, one of the most famous singer-songwriters, grew up and to which the guitarist Alessandro “Asso” Stefana, another guest of the concert, also refers.

Classical music will be back on the scene on 8 September, in Col Bel, in Val di Fassa, with the unprecedented violin and viola duo of Clarissa Bevilacqua and Vika Powell, very young concert performers already appreciated on stages all over the world, and the following day on the occasion of the Sunrise of the Dolomites, a highly anticipated event which this year will take place in Prà Castròn di Flavona, a natural basin dominated by the walls of the Brenta, at 6.40 am. The protagonist of the inevitable greeting at sunrise, always a source of great emotions, will be Mozart's music this year, performed by the Camerata Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, an ensemble made up of principals of one of the most prestigious symphony orchestras in the world.

On Friday 13 September, at Villa Welsperg, at the foot of the Pale di San Martino, a special project is planned, entitled “E lucevan le stelle”, dedicated to Giacomo Puccini, on the centenary of the death of one of the greatest opera composers: the soprano Lana Kos and the tenor Raffaele Abete will perform, assisted by I Solisti di Verona, some of the most famous Puccini’s arias.

And on September 14th the Bombasél Lakes, in Val di Fiemme, will welcome the French Arod Quartet to the notes of the Quartet op. 76 n.6 in E flat. major, HOB. III:80 by Joseph Haydn and the String Quartet No.3 in A major, Op. 41 n.3 by Robert Schumann.

The next day at Camp Centener, above Madonna di Campiglio, classical hornist Sarah Willis, principal horn of the prestigious Berliner Philharmoniker, will present her unique project Mozart y Mambo. This innovative performance combines the music of the illustrious Salzburg composer with the vibrant sounds of Cuba, featuring a group of talented musicians from one of the world's most musical islands.

One of the core principles of I Suoni delle Dolomiti is accessibility. Four of the festival's concerts will be accessible to people with motor and hearing disabilities: a tribute to Puccini at Villa Welsperg on September 13, Raphael Gualazzi at Malga Brenta Bassa on September 17, the Renaud Garcia Fons Trio on September 21, and Paolo Conte Legacy at Rifugio Fuciade on September 25. This inclusivity is made possible by Re-Moove, a Trentino company specializing in inclusive mobility, which provides inclusive vehicles, bikes, and Subpac audio-tactile systems.

All concerts of I Suoni delle Dolomiti are scheduled for 12pm, except Alba on 8 September, at 6.40am, and the concerts on 19 and 25 September, scheduled for 2 pm. Detailed information at www.visittrentino.info/isuonidelledolomiti

The Sounds of the Dolomites is a cultural and environmental tourism and communication project conceived and curated by Trentino Marketing together with the Val di Fassa, Val di Fiemme, San Martino di Castrozza, Passo Rolle, Primiero and Vanoi, Val di Non, Madonna di Campiglio and Dolomiti-Paganella local tourism boards, and with the collaboration of SAT, Associazione Rifugi, MUSE, Guide Alpine del Trentino, Soccorso Alpino del Trentino, and Croce Rossa del Trentino.

Artistic direction by Mario Brunello.

For the 2024 edition, I Suoni delle Dolomiti is once again benefiting from the technical sponsorship of Montura. The affinity between the review and the mountain and outdoor clothing and footwear brand stems from the shared desire to search for new spaces and forms of expression that, as happens in Montura Editing projects, offer moments of juxtaposition and encounter between different planes of communication. A friendship born from the experimentation of the common path towards art and mountains.

Sounds of the Dolomites and Marzadro walk together. Between nature and culture, between tradition and innovation along a path of passion and commitment that has roots in the past and allows us today to tell the story of Trentino through two witnesses of excellence: the mountains with their values and grappa as the distillate of the territory's identity.