Italy’s Late Spring Music Festival to Honor Violinist Salvatore Accardo

Various musical events will be hosted across the four days of the festival, including an interview with Accardo as the guest of honor

Hosted by Reggia of Venaria from May 30 to June 2, 2024, the second edition of the Late Spring Music Festival will focus on music genres from the Baroque and Romantic periods to today's music.

The festival was created by the Consortium of the Royal Residences of the House of Savoy (“Consorzio delle Residenze Reali Sabaude”) alongside the Italian cellist Claudio Pasceri, who is also the event’s artist-in-residence for three years, from 2023 to 2025"

Featured in the festival program on June 1, is violinist Salvatore Accardo, who will be present at Reggia di Venaria as the guest of honor to discuss his life in music with one of Italy’s most esteemed musicologists, Angelo Foletto.

Salvatore Accardo made his debut in recital at the age of 13, and later won the Geneva and the Paganini Competitions. From the 1970s to the 1990s, he founded the Accardo Quartet, the Walter Stauffer Academy, the Settimane Musicali Internazionali in Naples, and the Cremona String Festival.

As a conductor, he has recorded with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, and conducted at the Rome Opera House, Monte Carlo Opera, and the Lille and  Naples Opera Houses; his discography has appeared on the Deutsche Grammophon, Phillips, ASV, Dynamic, EMI, Sony Classical, Collins Classic, and Foné record labels. 

Among his accolades include the Abbiati Prize by the Italian Musical Critics, and the “most honorable Professor” title from the Beijing Conservatoire in 1996. He is also the recipient of Monaco’s “Commandeur dans l’ordre du mérit culturel,” “A Life for the Music” Award, and the Gold Medal in the Arts from the Kennedy Center. Accardo plays the 1734 Guarneri del Gesù “Reade” violin. 

The Late Spring Music Festival will be opened by the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Teatro Regio of Turin with percussion virtuoso Andrei Pushkarev in his new version of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” presented for the first time in Italy.

World premieres at the festival will include a piece by the festival’s chosen artist Ivan Fedele written specially for the Reggia. Titled LouLa Sonnets and inspired by the verses of the French poet Louise Labé, who lived in the 16th century, Fedele’s work will be performed by Pasceri and the choir of the Ensemble Sequenza 9.3.

Other featured performers include Wilhem Latchoumia, Andrei Pushkarev, Herbert Schuch, and the Quartetto Prometeo.

The festival will also host talks with the musicologist Guido Barbieri and the philosopher and journalist Filippo La Porta.

Directors of varying European music festivals will also be present to discuss the theme of “how to imagine the future of music,” including Felix Heri, who is head of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary.

Tickets to the 2024 Late Spring Music Festival can be found here.