Festival Prečkanja - Sconfinamenti
In the years 2024 and 2025, the cross-border Slovenian-Italian region will, in the spirit of European Capital of Culture GO! 2025, become a center of classical music. The Prečkanja - Sconfinamenti Festival, organized by Glasbena matica of Friuli Venezia Giulia and Imago Sloveniae Foundation, will host several outstanding musical artists. The organizers are promising a rich program of concerts, residencies and master classes. This year, the festival will take place between July 24 and August 4 at several venues between the Gorizia-Nova Gorica cross-border area and Ljubljana. The events will be admission free.
About the Festival
The Prečkanja - Sconfinamenti Festival grew in close cooperation with the renowned piano virtuoso Alexander Gadjiev, who, as the initiator of the project, also took on the role of Programme Director. The festival's program is based on top classical music concerts, with an emphasis on young "stars in the making" from around the world. The events will take place at numerous venues in Nova Gorica, Gorica, Čedad and Ljubljana. In addition to the concerts, the festival will also offer master classes, where promising young musicians will improve their skills under the guidance of first-class pedagogues and artists, including Alexander Gadjiev.
About the Programme Director
Alexander Gadjiev, Programme Director of the festival and European Capital of Culture GO! 2025 ambassador, is one of the most prominent pianists of his generation. Born into an international family in Gorica, Gadjiev has been winning top prizes at prestigious international competitions and performing on the world's biggest stages from an early age. His rich career and passion for music encouraged him to focus his energy on supporting young talents and promoting classical music on a cross-border level.
About Master Classes
This year, the Festival of Prečkanja - Sconfinamenti will host three exceptional masterclasses.
Alexander Gadjiev and his father, renowned pedagogue Siavush Gadjiev, will lead a piano course for 12 selected pianists to deepen their musical expression. The course will end with a concert of the participants Per aspera ad astra in Ljubljana (SI). The second masterclass, led by Noam Sivan, world-renowned pioneer of classical improvisation, will focus on improvisation in classical music. The participants of the course will present their skills at the final Impromptu concert in Gorizia (IT). The Festival will also offer a Masterclass in Composition with the internationally renowned Spanish composer Guillem Palomar.
About the Programme 2025
The Prečkanja - Sconfinamenti Festival, which I imagine as a hybrid plant that has taken on characteristics from different environments and is ready to survive even in the most extreme conditions, takes place in both its organisational and implementation aspects between two neighbouring countries, particularly between two neighbouring cities, Nova Gorica and Gorizia, and more broadly in the Italian and Slovenian cultural space. The festival offers top-notch concert evenings featuring well-known and up-and-coming young musicians, as well as educational programmes.
As the old Latin proverb says ‘Ars longa, vita brevis’ (art is long, life is short), we also want to highlight and embrace the knowledge of masters of the older and younger generations, as well as the new approaches of young performers who inspire us with their efforts to establish themselves and discover the extraordinary wealth of the world and domestic musical treasure trove.
This year's programme will focus on the piano, an instrument capable of synthesising the most diverse sensibilities and offering an almost infinite range of expression.
We will begin with the young Filippo Gorini, who has just made his debut at La Scala in Milan and will devote his evening to one of the ‘Everests’ of the piano: Schubert's last three sonatas.
We will continue with a matinee by Noam Sivan, which will be entirely devoted to improvisation, and we will conclude the day with our resident festival trio ‘Beyond,’ which this year presents a rare combination of horn, violin and piano. The trio, consisting of violinist Mayumi Kanagawa (winner of the 4th prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow) and Giuseppe Guarrera (well known to our audience), will be accompanied by horn player Ben Goldscheider, one of the few soloists of his instrument in the world. Together, they will take us into the world of Brahms and Ligeti, in a mixture of romanticism and complete modernity.
25 June will be dedicated to our students with three concerts of interpretation, improvisation and piano composition.
The following day, Rafael Lipstein, a young German pianist, will surprise us with a programme dedicated to the repertoire for the left hand.
We will continue the tradition that began last year: solo recitals for the cello. This year, Michiako Ueno will accompany us in a programme created especially for us, combining Bach's suites with contemporary compositions from his native Japan.
On 28 and 29 June, we will travel to Ljubljana, where, as every year, our students will perform in the grand hall of the Slovenian Philharmonic. We will then continue in the first week of July; the first date (1 July) will be reserved for the best students of previous masterclasses, and the following evening will feature a documentary film focusing on the last Chopin competition in Warsaw. ‘Pianoforte’, as the documentary is called, has won numerous international awards in Europe and the USA, and I am one of the central figures in it.
3 July will be dedicated to choral singing with the Mittelvox octet, which originates from our region, and on 4 July we will continue another tradition, the organ concert. The young and talented Ana Marija Krajnc, from Ljubljana, will lead us through a programme that combines masterpieces of Baroque and Romantic music.
At our penultimate event, Spanish improviser Javier Liebana will accompany a famous silent film at a new and original festival location.
At the end of the festival, I will personally participate in a ‘first opportunity’ that I am particularly excited about: a recital at the Verdi Theatre in Gorizia, featuring works by Beethoven, Debussy, Bartok, Schumann and, to conclude, Rachmaninoff's famous Second Sonata.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Alexander Gadjiev, programme director