This year, for the seventh time, the Lviv National Philharmonic will host the Pizzicato e Cantabile summer festival! Its founder and director as always is a famous Ukrainian organist Olena Matseliukh.

“Pizzicato e Cantabile” (literally from Italian – “Pinch and sing”) – these two methods of sound creation are present at all stages of human evolution. The symbols of theatrical and musical art in Ancient Greece were Avlos, a singing-spiritual instrument, and Kiphara, a string-sounding instrument, on which the gods Dionysus and Apollo played. The biblical King David sang the Psalms accompanied by his Psalter. Orpheus accompanied himself by singing and by plucking the strings of the lyre. Epic genres of various peoples of the Earth arose from a combination of singing and playing multiple plucked instruments. Accompanied by kobza-bandura, Ukrainian kobzari created a thought epic. Now singing to the guitar is the most common manifestation of musical activity of people in all corners of our planet.

The organizers and participants of the 7th International Summer Festival “Pizzicato e Cantabile“ set themselves an important task: to sing and convey the beauty of musical art, touching the deepest chords of the soul of the public tired of COVID-19 and war. After all, music sung and played on various musical instruments by leading Ukrainian and foreign performers is the best cure for any virus, anxiety, or worries.

9 exciting events are waiting for everyone, which will last from July 28 to August 7, 2022. The festival will unite the best musicians from Ukraine, Poland, and France, whose geography of performances covers dozens of countries worldwide! They will perform world-famous masterpieces by Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Liszt, Debussy, Brahms, Gershwin, and works that everyone will definitely recognize from the first notes. You will be able to hear them in original arrangements and interpretations.

The guests of the Festival will travel through the music of different countries and eras together with piano, organ, guitar, vocal, and string music. In particular, on the stage of the Lyudkevich Concert Hall, we will hear the performance of regular participants of the festival, including Olena Matselukh (organ), Igor Matselukh (pan flute), Melania Makarevych (piano), Svitlana Pozdnysheva (organ), Marianna Laba (soprano), Olga Striletska ( piano). We will hear the musicians at the opening of the Festival on July 28 in the concert “Gloria Domini”. On July 30 – “Ferenc Liszt: Journey to Lviv” and on August 6 in the event “Le Quattro Stagioni”, in the program of which the famous “Four Seasons” will be heard, Antonio Vivaldi.

Also, for the first time as part of the Festival, guests from Luhansk will perform – the Brass Ensemble of the Luhansk Regional Philharmonic (conductor – Igor Shapovalov) – the event “American Stories” (July 30), and from Ivano-Frankivsk – the String Ensemble of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Philharmonic (conductor – Angela Prikhodko) – the “Quattro Corde” event (August 7). The solo organ will be presented by musicians from France, Jean-Marie Leroy with the program “Vive la France” (August 2), and Viktor Lijak from Poland – with the program “Warsaw – Lviv” (August 6).

On August 2, Kyiv guitarist Andriy Ostapenko invites listeners to a colorful solo program of Spanish, Latin American, French, and Italian music “Idalgo con Guitarra”. The trombone trio ensemble (Lyubomir Lishchuk, Oleksandr Khokhlov, Igor Shapovalov) and organ ensemble (Svitlana Pozdnysheva) will perform compositions from the era of baroque masters, composers of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and Ukrainian composer Vyacheslav Nazarov at the “Hosanna” event.

9 concerts that will take place over two weeks will overcome the syndrome of apathy and pessimism from the sounds of sirens. The last month of the summer of 2022 for the Lviv National Philharmonic is the Festival opening of new performers and concerts. Musical Lviv is trying to return at least a little to the usual active rhythm of life. The doors of the  Ludkevych Concert Hall are open to everyone, who is close to the art of joy, beauty, and hope, whose name is music!

Details  about the events and tickets by the link

Photo by Roman Tupys from the Festival archive