“Music that can be seen,” in other words, concerts to feast your eyes on, from Baroque to contemporary. A host of different musical genres in unusual settings, straddling the fine line between theater and performance art.

Leading artists from contemporary music’s international scene will be on hand at this year’s edition of MITO SettembreMusica, presenting some of their most recent creations for a star-studded series of Italian Premieres featuring Lisa Streich (Sweden), Simon Steen-Andersen (Denmark), Heiner Goebbels (Germany) and Fabio Nieder (Italy-Germany). The special events also feature the Rai National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Robert Treviño, playing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, Lisa Streich’s Ishjärta, Simon Steen-Andersen’s no Concerto, with Rei Nakamura on piano and actor Vinicio Marchioni. Somewhere between concert and performance art, no Concerto is “a fictional media- and music archaeological exploration staging an imaginary first encounter with a (reconstruction of a) classical concert” – Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 for piano and orchestra – “experienced by a person from a distant future in which music and concerts as we know them no longer exist.”

Heiner Goebbels’ A House of Call is a cycle of invocations, prayers, poems and songs for a large orchestra, backed by recordings of sounds and voices from all over the world. A House of Call will be performed by the Rai National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Vimbayi Kaziboni, with Goebbels in charge of lighting. The Percussion Orchestra and the Schlagquartett Köln, conducted by Peter Rundel, perform Edgar Varèse’s 20th-century classic, Ionisation for thirteen percussionists, followed by Fabio Nieder’s latest work Erdenmarsch.

Two compositions by Olivier Messiaen, a key figure in 20th-century music, are on the program this year – Catalogue d’Oiseaux for piano and Harawi for soprano and piano. Both performances feature the young soloist Costanza Principe, with soprano Katrien Baerts in the role of vocalist for Harawi. Catalogue d’Oiseaux will be played in its entirety in three different locations in Milano, at three different times of day – interpretations of birdsong as odes to nature.

Torino-born Ludovico Einaudi has garnered international fame as a composer spanning genres and styles. At MITO SettembreMusica 2024 he and his band will be performing In a Time Lapse Reimagined at an outdoor concert in elegant Piazza San Carlo, in the heart of Torino. The next night, the same stellar location plays host to Giovanni Sollima and Enrico Melozzi’s amazing project 100 Cellos, which first came together over a decade ago, uniting cellists from different countries, generations and backgrounds in a giant ensemble beaming with extravagant amounts of human energy.  

The great array of music to be heard at MITO SettembreMusica 2024 is not without representation from the Baroque era. Contralto Delphine Galou is featured in two recitals, accompanied on harpsichord and organ by Ottavio Dantone. Torino’s Le Roi music hall may be a somewhat unusual setting for Wild Passions, but the backdrop is fitting, with the duo performing a secular anthology of cantatas and arias inspired by the theme of love. At the Church of Santa Maria Rossa in Crescenzago, Milano, the duo presents The Gates of Heaven, with sacred music from the 16th to the early 18th centuries.