Venezuelan musician Gabriela Montero (source: Colin Bell)
THE VIVA Musica! festival has become a summer fixture on Bratislava’s cultural calendar. This year’s festival, the ninth, brings – as did the previous ones – classical, jazz and world music and their crossovers to various sites in Bratislava, including open-air venues and free concerts.
In 2013 there are a wide range of events, from the opening concert by the MozART Group, which will perform humorous versions of the maestro’s classics in the Main Square on June 22, through famous Japanese jazz pianist and musician Hiromi, Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero and her interpretation of classical composers plus her own improvisations, a garden party with Slovak performers and Slovak composers, to the Folklor Symphony – combining folklore-inspired Slovak composers Tibor Andrašovan and Svetozár Stračina with the folk ensemble Lúčnica – and a break-dance performance to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach by Red Bull Flying Bach.
The final concert, on June 29 at Bratislava Castle, will pay tribute to Czech composer Petr Hapka, who created music for 60 Czechoslovak, Czech, Slovak and German films, and numerous hits for Czech and Slovak singers including Hana Hegerová, Karel Gott, Lucie Bílá, Michael Kocáb, Jana Kirschner and Richard Müller. He is said to have started composing at the age of five. The Bratislava concert will host performers including Bílá, Kocáb, Kirschner, Szidi Tobias, Jana Golisová, František Segrado and the Viva Musica! orchestra conducted by Oskar Rózsa.
The full programme for this year’s Viva Musica! festival can be found – in English – at www.vivamusica.sk.
