runs 2 to 18 October 2008

77 composers and 34 concerts performed by 13 leading ensembles –instrumental and vocal– 3 orchestras, 8 solists, and meetings, seminars, workshops to form a rich, packed programme for the 52nd International Festival of Contemporary Music, to be held in Venice between the 2nd and 18th October 2008.
Roots / Future, the title chosen for the Festival by the new director, Luca Francesconi, is the underlying theme of the “tale” that unfolds through the concerts planned. In each of them, the roots co-exist with the future: young composers or from the mid-generation, whether newcomers or established, appear alongside some great masters who have left their mark on 20th-century music and beyond, in a series of references multiplying the meanings and offering new significance to the works presented.
For Francesconi,  Roots / Future means “reflecting about that which has left a trace, starting with the young who have noted and been inspired by it and have nourished our possible future, linking up in this process also with the tradition of Venice and the Biennale”.
The opening concert on 2nd October places Igor Stravinsky and Luigi Nono –both of whom have played a crucial role in the history of music and a fundamental one in Venice and the Biennale– appear alongside Juste Janulyte and Mirjam Tally, fresh exponents from the international scene.

The concert opens the Festival with the same Canticum Sacrum ad honorem Sancti Marci nominis that Stravinsky dedicated to the city and which he conducted in 1956 with the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice, present once more with Eliahu Inbal on the podium.