GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Verbier Festival, a key thread in the fabric of Switzerland’s rich summer music offer, closed last Sunday 5 August with 30,000 visitors on the books, but with a hugely successful TV programme in addition. Some 350,000 classical music fans viewed the concerts live on medici.tv.
Ed. note: the concerts are available free of charge on medici.tv until the end of October 2012.
The Verbier Festival consists of a mix of concerts, master classes, open rehearsals, conferences, music workshops, jam sessions, street art performances and musical walks. It ended with a concert by violinist Leonidas Kavakos, conducted by Manfred Honeck, but 2012 festival highlights included debuts by Daniil Trifonov and Rolando Villazón, opera performances (Le Nozze di Figaro and Pelléas et Mélisande) and for the Swiss national holiday 1 August, a performance by Angélique Kidjo that transformed the Salle des Combins into a dance floor.
The festival’s 20th anniversary will be celebrated in 2013, from 19 July to 4 August. Works by Verdi and Wagner are planned, with the whole cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos. Stay tuned as the programme unfolds.
