OSI AT WHITSUN - PRESENZA 2024

In 2024 the star cellist Sol Gabetta returns once more to Lugano, where she will be at the LAC in mid-May for the third edition of the Presenza Whitsun Festival. This major project will see her perform in two spectacular orchestral concerts featuring the music of Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Sibelius, together with the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana and its Principal Conductor Markus Poschner as well as the inspirational violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja.

This year the third edition of the Presenza Festival offers two magnificent orchestral concerts featuring the music of Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Sibelius, on Friday 17 May and Saturday 18 May at 20.30 at the LAC. Included on the programme are the passionate Second Concerto for violin by Prokofiev and the First Concerto for cello by Shostakovich, as well as two symphonies by Sibelius and several other works, among them the world premiere of a piece by Kopatchinskaja specially commissioned by the OSI, A play.

The idea is to offer the public new ways of enjoying classical music, drawing inspiration from the original circumstances in which the pieces were composed as well as paying utmost attention to the scenic and theatrical components of the performances.

Bearing in mind that in 2021 there was a first introductory (online) version of the festival, this will be the fourth year in a row that the famous Swiss-Argentinian cellist Sol Gabetta – by now very much ‘at home’ at the LAC in Lugano during the Whitsun period – will be the presiding spirit of the Presenza Festival.

Together with the OSI’s Principal Conductor Markus Poschner and the collaboration of another top-ranking soloist, the Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, this time there will be a journey between the Russia of Prokofiev and Shostakovich and the Finland of Sibelius, featuring some of the most emblematic works by these three composers, including the first and also the penultimate symphony (the last to be published) by Sibelius.

There will also be chamber compositions, by Shostakovich once again as well as by De Falla, while Patricia Kopatchinskaja will be heard not only as violinist but also as composer (PatKop), with her piece A play for violin, cello and orchestra, a new OSI commission that will be receiving its premiere at Presenza.
Enriching the whole experience will be some musical surprises, unexpected pieces and ‘presences’ that will see the two soloists join the OSI for several orchestral works alongside, once again, a number of scenic-theatrical innovations (the lighting in the hall in keeping with the music performed), aimed at rethinking not only some of the rituals that have become so entrenched in programmes but audience behaviour as well (such as silences and applause only at certain moments).

The OSI Presenza Festival & Sol Gabetta is a co-production with LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura; the concert on 17 May also benefits from the support of the Comune di Paradiso.