The June 2022 program at the Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone - Santa Cecilia Hall.

Thursday, June 9 7:30 p.m., Friday, June 10 8:30 p.m., Saturday, June 11 6 p.m.

The Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Conductor Jakub Hrůša, soprano Kateřina Kněžíková, alto Jarmila Balážová, tenor Richard Samek, bass Jozef Benci.

Dvořák Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" Janáček Glagolitic Mass for solos, choir and orchestra.

The Principal Guest Conductor of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Jakub Hrůša, returns to Rome for the last concert of the season on Thursday, June 9 at 7:30 p.m. (replays on Friday, June 10 at 8:30 p.m. and Saturday, June 11 at 6 p.m.), conducting the Orchestra and Chorus, instructed by Piero Monti, and a close-knit quartet of solo singers-Kateřina Kněžíková soprano, Jarmila Balážová alto, Richard Samek tenor, Jozef Benci bass.

The program layouts in the first part Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 "From the New World," composed in the United States and in which some American melodies resonate, such as, for example, the spirituals Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and Go Down Moses, while "Indian" inspiration have the melodies of the two central movements.

In the second part, Hrůša will conduct the Glagolitic Mass (divided into eight parts, three of which are instrumental only) that Janáček composed in the last years of his life on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Czechoslovak Republic and to honor the world of Cyril and Methodius, the two "Apostles of the Slavs" who in the second half of the 9th century developed the "Glagolitic" alphabet to write the phonemes of the Slavic languages and spread the sacred scriptures in those countries.

Thursday, June 16 7:30 p.m., Friday, June 17 8:30 p.m., Saturday, June 18 6 p.m.

Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Daniel Harding conductor

Paul Lewis piano 

Grieg Piano Concerto 

R. Strauss A Hero's Life

Thursday, June 16, 7:30 p.m. (replays Friday, June 17, 8:30 p.m. and Saturday, June 18, 6 p.m., Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone-Santa Cecilia Hall) Daniel Harding makes his return to conduct the Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia.

The conductor worked at a very young age alongside Simone Rattle as his assistant conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1994, then, as Claudio Abbado's assistant, he conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1996 (at the age of only twenty-one).

Performing with the English conductor will be pianist, also from England, Paul Lewis, a regular guest of major orchestras. 

He will open the evening with Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto, composed in 1868 and first performed in Copenhagen in 1869, which has its own beguiling charm due to ingenious and catchy melodic figures, with a preference for short phrases and refined harmonies, and imbued with details carped from Norwegian folklore. 

In the second part of the concert Harding will conduct Richard Strauss's symphonic poem A Hero's Life (1899), a kind of autobiographical portrait of the composer that includes numerous self-quotations, drawn largely from earlier symphonic poems, but also from the opera Guntram and the Lied Morgen.

The score, which formally resembles a symphony of large proportions, is divided into six sections that follow one another without interruption and are entitled The Hero, The Hero's Opponents, The Hero's Companion (on solo violinist Andrea Obiso, first violin of the Santa Cecilia Orchestra), The Hero's Battlefield, The Hero's Peace Works, The Hero's Retreat from the World and The Hero's End. 

For more information please visit www.santacecilia.it.

Tickets from €19 to €52.