The Brescia and Bergamo Piano Festival was born in 1964 and named
after the great Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.
It was Michelangeli himself, a native of Brescia, who encouraged and supported
the initiative of Agostino Orizio’s, the Festival’s founder.
It very soon established itself as Italy’s leading annual piano event
and one of the most important in the world.
Held each year in May and June in Brescia and Bergamo, the Festival is not
merely a showcase for the best pianists in the world.
It regularly hosts the world’s major orchestras and conductors, including
the Israel Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Gewandhaus of Lipsia,
Orchestre Nationale de France, Filarmonica della Scala, Lorin Maazel,
Wolfgang Sawallisch, Riccardo Muti and Myung-Whun Chung.
The 2002 edition will be one of the few Italian venues on the tour
of the Berliner Philharmoniker led by Claudio Abbado…
In 2000 the Festival also created the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Prize,
awarded each year to an internationally renowned soloist: Maurizio Pollini in 2000
and Martha Argerich in 2001. Vladimir Ashkenazy will be recognised
in the next edition.
MUSICOM has been the Festival’s partner in programming artistic events
of the highest level for over ten years. Luciano Pavarotti, Claudio Abbado,
Martha Argerich, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Sviatoslav Richter, Nikita Magaloff,
Riccardo Muti, Grigory Sokolov, Cecilia Gasdia, Gerhard Oppitz, Lorin Maazel,
Maxim Vengerov, Alexander Lonquich and Andrei Gavrilov are just some
of the stars of the audio and video productions MUSICOM
has realised in collaboration with the Festival.
MUSICOM also takes care of the Festival’s Sound Archive.
The most important concerts are recorded using the most sophisticated
technology available and preserved in the Festival’s archives,
forming a unique document of the music of our time.