After Covid, Angela Hewitt ends her Italian festival
NewsThe pianist has posted:
A big decision that I have not taken lightly, but which I know is the right one: this year’s Trasimeno Music Festival will be the last.
This is our 18th festival. We began in 2005 with just six concerts in the week, all in the Castle of the Knights of Malta in Magione–which remains everybody’s favourite venue. It grew to include many other wonderful venues around Umbria and neighbouring Tuscany (Perugia, Gubbio, Trevi, Cortona, Bevagna, Panicale, Assisi), and our best years were probably between 2014 and 2019. Then covid hit and the world changed.
In 2020 we cancelled like everybody else had to; in 2021 we had a lovely mini-festival which was very touching and special, despite social distancing. In 2022 I myself got covid and missed most of it.
This year–I don’t know–something is different. I’ve tried so hard to get people to come, to little effect. I simply can’t put in this monstrous amount of work all year round for so few people to show up. It makes no sense. Even if the artistic rewards are great (and we have wonderful musicians this year, as we’ve had every year), it’s simply too disheartening. As one of my volunteers said today, the amount of work is “massacrante” (back-breaking). And our beloved Operations Director, Guglielmo, is in hospital at the moment with pneumonia and will miss the whole thing. We are very sad about that.
BUT: for those of you who are coming, and for those of you who I still hope will buy tickets in the next 10 days, we will perform for you with all our heart and soul and give you an experience you won’t forget. We are here for you 100%!!
The Trasimeno Music Festival has been without a doubt one of the great things of my life. I thank all of you who have made it a possibility.
Much love, Angela
Re the headline, Covid is still very much with us. Not at epidemic proportions but we’re hardly “after” it either.
This is total nonsense. People aren’t going because they are feeling the crunch of rising prices and a difficult economy, and musicians like Angela Hewitt act like they deserve audiences no matter what. It’s basically just a vanity project for a very underwhelming pianist and a few of her friends, and no one cares anymore. She can go bore people somewhere else — but she’ll never learn because in Angela’s mind, there is only Angela.
Actually as someone who has been to the festival twice, I know that neither Angela Hewitt nor any of her colleagues who work so hard to set the Festival up want anything other than to provide a wonderful musical and cultural experience for people who wish to come. For me it has been a source of delight and I am very sorry to hear that this will be the last year
Local italian peasant…..Fits exactly.
Until recently, the Italian government oppressed people who wished to exercise their right to bodily autonomy and decline the offer of an experimental vaccine with a very questionable risk-benefit ratio, and subjecting everyone to incessant requirements to produce identification and certification for so many activities. Some Italian municipalities impose ridiculous bans on such basic pleasures such as having a picnic on a park bench, ostensibly due to littering, but in practice a stark indication that visitors who cannot afford to take every meal at a café/restaurant are not welcome. Some places are even imposing tourist taxes on people making a blooming day trip.
Amid such restrictions and requirements to produce identification at every turn (well, to be honest, the Italians have always been a bit too much of a “papers please” society for my liking), is it any surprise that prospective visitors are voting with their feet, and taking their custom elsewhere? Personally, I do not envisage visiting Italy for any reason in the foreseeable future… unless someone offers me a very well paid gig there (which is not going to happen).
That’s a cruel way to state it but the point in essence stands. Covid can’t be blamed entirely for the lack of interest and may be hardly to blame at all.
This is very sad….A beautiful festival with great artists,and of course,one of the greatest living pianists(for those who care for more than chaep thrills).
Angela is my hero. Her playing is thoughtful, smart and not excessive (like many of the currently popular ridiculous pianists who are all show and technique but no substance).
She also has the courage to play a variety of great pianos, which most professional pianists in America are afraid to do due to lack of anticompetitive/antitrust regulation.