The Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik (Innsbruck Festival of Early Music) is an early music festival founded in 1976.[1]
In the year 1963, to celebrate the 600th anniversary of Tyrolean apartenage to Austria, the Innsbruck musician Prof. Otto Ulf (1907 - 1993) presented the first Ambras Castle Concert, and every August since 1976 Innsbruck with its Festwochen has been a mecca for Early Music fans. Opera stars such as Jennifer Larmore and the counter-tenor Derek Lee Ragin have enthralled audiences, musicians such as Jordi Savall and Sigiswald Kuijken have given spellbinding concerts in Innsbruck.[2]
The festival takes place in venues including the Ambras Castle every August. From 1991 to 2009 René Jacobs organized the opera program, and from 1997 to 2009 Jacobs was artistic director of the whole festival. Operas included Pietro Antonio Cesti's L'Orontea and L'Argia, Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, L'incoronazione di Poppea, Francesco Cavalli's Giasone, Serse, Francesco Conti's Don Chisciotte in Sierra Morena, Antonio Sartorio's Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Handel's Flavio, Rinaldo, Telemann's Orpheus, Johann Adolf Hasse's Solimano, Haydn Il mondo della luna, Mozart's La finta semplice Don Giovanni and Florian Leopold Gassmann's L'opera seria.
Among the conductors making appearances are Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Jordi Savall, Sigiswald Kuijken, John Eliot Gardiner and Alan Curtis.
Since 2010, Alessandro De Marchi, has succeeded Jacobs.[3]
Videos
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References
- ^ Michael Gehler Tirol: "Land im Gebirge" : zwischen Tradition und Moderne 1999 p273 "1976 fand erstmals eine Woche der alten Musik in Innsbruck statt und ein Jahr später wagte man, ihr den Titel »Festwoche der alten Musik« zu geben."
- ^ http://www.facebook.com/pages/Innsbrucker-Festwochen-der-Alten-Musik/181679678794
- ^ http://www.altemusik.at/ueber-uns/geschichte/