KAOS was commissioned by MITO for this year’s festival. The composer Paola Prestini draws inspiration from three short stories by Pirandello – La giara, Mal di luna,
Requiem – to create an orchestral triptych on Sicily, with its conflicts and superstitions. Britten responds with the Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes: four marine
snapshots – dawn, Sunday morning, moonlight, storm – in which the atmosphere mirrors the inner torments of the human soul. The program concludes with Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony, written upon his return from the 1830 journey that had amazed him: from the funeral march to the tarantella, with a first movement that
celebrates light without reservation.