Zubin Mehta returns to Naples to direct Stefano Bollani: Videos

After the acclaimed return with Beethoven’s IX Symphony and the success of the tour in Bangkok, Zubin Mehta will close the month of September (Sunday 30 hours 18:00) to the Neapolitan Massimo with a concert in which he will direct – always on the podium of the Orchestra of the Teatro di San Carlo – the famous and acrobatic pianist Stefano Bollani.

The twentieth century is the protagonist of the program, the century emblem of the most fervent and innovative musical experimentation. At the opening, a tribute to Leonard Bernstein, on the centenary of his birth, with the Ouverture dal Candide. Followed by George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in blue: “a musical kaleidoscope of America”, as its author defined it. The conclusion will be Le Sacre du Printemps by Igor Stravinsky: composed for ballet, the music picks up the Russian folk repertoire, renewing popular themes through a varied and distorted use of harmony, melody and rhythm.

Born in Bombay in 1936, he received his first musical education from his father, Mehli Mehta, a talented violinist and founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. After studying Medicine for a short period, in 1954 he went to Vienna where he attended the Hans Swarowsky Conducting courses at the Akademie für Musik. In 1958 he won the Liverpool International Conducting Competition and the Tanglewood Summer Academy Award; since 1961 he has been called to direct the Wiener and the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Israel Philharmonic, orchestras with whom he recently celebrated 50 years of collaboration. Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1967 and of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra from 1962 to 1978, he was nominated, in 1969, Music Adviser of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he became Musical Director in 1977 and, since 1981, Musical Director a Vita, guiding it in over 3000 concerts in Israel and touring five continents. In 1978 and for 13 years, the longest period in the history of the orchestra, Zubin Mehta became Music Director of the prestigious New York Philharmonic, while in 1985 he became Chief Conductor of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra. He made his opera debut with Tosca in Montreal in 1963 and since then he has collaborated with the major opera houses and festivals in the world, including the Metropolitan in New York, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Covent Garden in London, the Milan, the Chicago Opera House, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Salzburg Festival. Between 1998 and 2006 he was Music Director of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, while in 2006 he inaugurated the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia and, until 2014, he was President of the Festival of the Mediterrani: in Valencia and in Florence he directed a memorable Ring des Nibelungen with La Fura dels Baus, born from the collaboration between the Spanish theater and the Maggio Fiorentino, followed by other new productions of the Wagnerian cycle at the Chicago Opera House and at the Bayerische Staatsoper. Among the awards and honors received by Zubin Mehta, we recall: the Nikisch-Ring left to him by Karl Böhm; the citizens of Florence and Tel Aviv and the nominations as an honorary member of the Wiener Staatsoper (1997), of the Bayerische Staatsoper (2006) and of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Wien (2007). He is also Honorary Director of the Wiener Philharmoniker (2001), the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra (2004), the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2006), the Orchestra del Maggio (2006), the Staatskapelle Berlin (2014) and the Bayerische Staatsorchester (2006). ), who toured in Srinagar, Kashmir, in 2013. In 2008 he received the “Praemium Imperiale” from the Japanese imperial family; in 2011 his name is inscribed on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood Boulevard; in 2012 he was awarded the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, while in 2013 the Indian government gave him the Tagore Award for Cultural Harmony, received the previous year by Ravi Shankar. Zubin Mehta encourages the discovery and promotion of new musical talents in every part of the world: together with his brother Zarin, he is co-president of the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation in Bombay, thanks to which more than 200 children are educated in Western classical music. The Buchmann-Mehta music school in Tel Aviv gives opportunities to grow young talents in Israel and is closely linked to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, as a new project for teaching young Arab-Israelis in the cities of Shwaram and Nazareth with local teachers and members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

In March 2015 he received the “Florentines in the World” Arts Award. He was appointed Life Director of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino for the 2017-2018 season. Since 2016 he is Honorary Musical Director of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples.

Stefano Bollani

He began studying piano at 6 and started his professional career at 15. After graduating from a conservatory in Florence in 1993 – and a brief experience as a session musician in the pop world with Raf and Jovanotti among others – he established himself in jazz playing on stage. like the Town Hall in New York, the Scala in Milan and Umbria Jazz. Fundamental is the collaboration, begun in 1996 and never interrupted, with Enrico Rava, alongside which he holds hundreds of concerts and records 13 records. The most recent: Tati (2005), The Third Man (2007) and New York Days (2008). During his career he collaborates with musicians such as Pat Metheny, Gato Barbieri, Richard Galliano, Sol Gabetta, Phil Woods, Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso and Chick Corea, with whom he makes the live record Orvieto (2011). In 1998, at the helm of the Titanic Orchestra, he pays homage to the Italian music of the ’30s and’ 40s with Abbassa your radio, disco-show in which they collaborate Peppe Servillo, Irene Grandi, Marco Parente, Barbara Casini, Roberto Gatto . Particularly outside the canons are then works such as the gnosis of the fanfole, along with the singer Massimo Altomare on texts by Fosco Maraini (1998), Cantata dei Pastori Immobili, Oratorio musicale for four voices, made on texts by David Riondino (2004) and the album of Scandinavian songs Gleda (2005). As an artistic producer and arranger, he also worked on the disc of Bodo Rondelli, desperate intellettuali ubriaconi (2002), winning the Ciampi prize. Between 2002 and 2006 he recorded four albums for the French label Label Bleu: Les Fleures Bleues, Smat Smat, Concertone and I Visionari. 2006 is also the year of Piano Solo (disco of the year for “Musica Jazz”). In 2007 he released BollaniCarioca, a record made together with great Brazilian artists: in December he was the second musician, after Antonio Carlos Jobim, to play a grand piano in a favela in Rio de Janeiro. Also in 2007 he won the European Jazz Preis and was included by the American magazine “Allaboutjazz” in the list of the five best musicians of the year together with Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus and Sonny Rollins. Among the most recent productions: Big Band (2013); Joy In Spite of Everything (2014); Sheik Yer Zappa (2014), live dedicated to Frank Zappa; The aliens arrive (2015), in which he tries for the first time as a singer-songwriter; Napoli Trip (2016), with Daniele Sepe, Manu Katché and Jan Bang among others. He also lends his plan to Italian pop-rock artists including Irene Grandi, with whom he signs the album Irene Grandi and Stefano Bollani (2012) . In classical circles he performs as soloist with symphonic orchestras (Gewandhaus of Leipzig, Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, Orchester de Paris, Filarmonica della Scala of Milan, Santa Cecilia of Rome, Toronto Symphony Orchestra) alongside directors such as Zubin Mehta, Kristjan Järvi, Daniel Harding, Antonio Pappano and above all Riccardo Chailly, with whom he recorded Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in Fa by Gershwin in a cd (2010) that won the Platinum Record with more than 70,000 copies sold. This is followed by the Concerto in Sol by Maurice Ravel (2012) and in 2013 a live DVD recorded at the Scala in Milan with the Concerto in Fa. His desire for experimentation borders the publishing world. In 2006, for Baldini Castoldi Dalai, he published the novel La sindrome di Brontolo, followed by Parliamo di musica (2013) and Il monello, the guru, the alchemist and other stories by musicians (2015), both published by Mondadori. As a character, with the name of Paperefano Bolletta, appears in the weekly Topolino, of which he is also appointed Ambassador. For the radio is the creator and conductor, with David Riondino and Mirko Guerrini, of the broadcast Doctor Djembè (Radio Rai 3, 2006-2012), from which also the book Lo Zibaldone by Doctor Djembè (2008) and the special TV Buonasera Dottor Djembè (Rai 3, 2010). Since 2009 his are the initials of the program of Radio Rai 3. At the theater he collaborates, among others, with Claudio Bisio, Maurizio Crozza, Giuseppe Battiston, Marco Baliani, the Osiris Band, and he writes the music for three performances by Lella Costa (Alice , a marvel of country, Hamlet and Girls) and for Cristina Pezzoli’s Antigone. Honorary Member of the Italian College of Patafisica, is co-author and actor in the show The Queen Dada, made together with Valentina Cenni in 2016. On television is a regular guest of Renzo Arbore in the program Meno siamo meglio (Rai 1, 2005) and creator , author and host of the two editions of Sostiene Bollani (Rai 3, 2011 and 2013), with which he brings jazz music on the small screen. His most recent project is The important thing is to have a plan (Rai 1, 2016): seven events in the late evening on Rai1 with guests, improvisations and live music.