Festival Villa-Lobos no. 47
The forty-seventh annual Festival Villa-Lobos takes place at the Museu Villa-Lobos in Rio de Janeiro from the 6th to the 28th of November, 2009. The Festival's Artistic Coordinator Marcelo Rodolfo has pulled out all the stops for this year's festival, which commemorates the 50th annniversary of the death of the composer on November 17, 1959.
The long list of Villa-Lobos works being performed includes some rare works: the orchestral version of the 1916 Élégie, Fantasia em 3 Movimentos (Em Forma de Choros), the Quinteto Instrumental, Choros #05 arranged for wind orchestra, and a 1912 work for winds I haven't heard of before, called Pro Pax. Concerts will also include works by other composers, especially from France, as part of the "Paris de Villa-Lobos" series.
There are two important new compositions being premiered at this year's Festival:
- Biguás (Cormorants) by Ricardo Tacuchian is a work commissioned by Sala Cecilia Meireles in honour of the 50th anniversary
- Pequena Fantasia sobre “A Menina das Nuvens” is an arrangement of themes from Villa's 1958 Fantasy Opera by Roberto Duarte
Performers include guitarist Paulo Pedrassoli, pianists Sérgio Monteiro & Sonia Rubinsky, the Quarteto Radamés Gnattali (who will perform all 17 String Quartets), the Quinteto Villa-Lobos, and many more. It's a star-studded line-up!
Here is a list of the most important concerts in the Festival.