Cremona 18 July 2018 – The names of the winners of the 2018 Cremona Musica Awards represent the true excellence in music: the conductor Valery Gergiev, the violinist Maxim Vengerov, the writer Alessandro Baricco, the guitar luthier Hermann Hauser III and the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival will be awarded this September.
The awards, that are conferred by the management of CremonaFiere on the recommendation of the artistic advisors of Cremona Musica, will be given during the upcoming edition of the historical exhibition of musical instruments, the main one in the world for high-quality instruments. Between 28 and 30 September, Cremona Musica will gather in Stradivari’s hometown the best luthiers, producers and distributors of musical instruments, and also dozens of great International artists, for a rich programme of concerts, masterclasses, workshops and events.
The Cremona Musica Award in the category “Performance – orchestra conduction” has been awarded to the legendary Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, artistic and general director of the Mariinsky Theatre, of which he leads the orchestra and opera and ballet companies. Under his guidance, the Theater in Saint Petersburg became one of the most important in the World.
The violinist Maxim Vengerov is awarded the Cremona Musica Award in the category “Performance – string instruments”. Recently, Vengerov made a really successful comeback in concert, after some years of absence, showing an interpretative intensity and a poetic that might be compared only with the great violinists of the past.
The Cremona Musica Award in the category “Composition” will be given to the renowned Georgian composer Giya Kancheli, an important figure in the history of 20th-century music, an artist who managed to find a peculiar poetic vein, full of spirituality and expressive immediacy.
In the category “Communication” the Cremona Musica Award will be given to the Italian writer Alessandro Baricco, whose activity has been influenced by his love for music, as in his essays on Rossini (Il genio in fuga. Due saggi sul teatro musicale di Gioacchino Rossini) and in the monologue Novecento, that inspired Tornatore’s movie The Legend of 1900 (“La leggenda del pianista sull’oceano”). Baricco was also able to communicate the poetic and semantic contents of music in a direct and engaging way during his TV and Radio shows.
The Cremona Musica Award in the category “Guitars lutherie” will be given to Hermann Hauser III, heir of the famous Hauser dynasty, the historical German guitar makers firm, of whom he is the current director (the concert guitar Hermann Hauser I made for Andrés Segovia is now kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York). Hermann Hauser III is also the founder of the Hermann Hauser Guitar Foundation, that promotes research and education regarding the development of music and the manufacturing of instruments. Together with Kathrin Hauser, Hermann Hauser III will be among the protagonists of a series of events dedicated to the Hauser guitars, that will be hosted in the Acoustic Guitar Village of Cremona Musica between 28 and 30 September.
The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival wins the Cremona Musica Awards in the category “Projects”. This Finnish chamber music festival, whose 49th edition is being held between 14 and 28 July, gathers every year about 35.000 listeners from all around the world in the city of Kuhmo (9000 inhabitants, 600 km north from Helsinki), for a great music full immersion. What makes this festival unique is the format: about 100 concerts in 15 days, with programmes that mix extremely rare and well-known music, famous musicians and rising stars, with an informal approach, far from the stereotypes of the star system. The Kuhmo Festival is an innovative and virtuous example, that works also from a productive and economic point of view, thanks to the enthusiasm of the musicians that enliven the festival, being its heart and soul. The award will be collected by Vladimir Mendelssohn, artistic director of the festival.
