Postcards from Italy

“The ACO is small in number, but big in impact.”

The Daily Telegraph

Join us as we travel to Italy, a destination rich with art, music and life that has cultivated and inspired generations of composers and musicians.

Bach’s popular Italian Concerto reveals his lasting fascination with the country’s musical innovations, while the great Tuscan cello virtuoso and composer Luigi Boccherini embodies its elegance and grace.

Tchaikovsky wrote his only string sextet, the Souvenir de Florence, during a summer visit to the country. Infused with sunlight and warmth, it basks in the pleasure of being alive.

Here in the present day, another Italian cellist and composer, Giovanni Sollima, invokes a dazzling, infectious energy with his Viaggio in Italia, a musical embodiment of the great luminaries in Italian art, music and literature.

An ACO chamber ensemble brings this music to life with the players in an intricate and ever-changing conversation with one another. Energy is palpably transferred from musician to musician and from the ensemble to you.

• Program

  Thomas Adés

  Arcadiana: I. Venezia Notturna

  Johann Sebastian Bach 

  (arr. string sextet) Italian Concerto, BWV971

  Giovanni Sollima 

  Viaggio in Italia: Selections

  Luigi Boccherini 

  String Quintet in C minor, Op.45, No.1

  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 

  Souvenir de Florence, Op.70

• Artists

  Helena Rathbone

  Violin

  Ike See

  Violin

  Stefanie Farrands

  Viola

  Elizabeth Woolnough

  Viola

  Timo-Veikko Valve

  Cello

  Julian Thompson

  Cello