A Cosmic Breath, a virtual festival for real musicians

THE ITALIAN BRASS WEEK 2020 - A COSMIC BREATH
The 21st edition of the Festival, which will take place online from the operational headquarters of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, in Florence, from 19 to 26 July, is entitled 'A Cosmic Breath: a virtual Festival with real Musicians'. The focus of the week will be Air in all its facets. Air is one of the four vital elements of nature, as intangible as music. It is the invisible energy that we breathe, it is the vital breath, the cosmic breath, the universal soul.
It is the element synonymous with fantasy, imagination, spirituality. It is, to put it in the manner of the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Anaximenes of Miletus, the vital breath, "as our soul, which is air, sustains us, so the breath and air surround the whole world".
For us Brass, physically aerophones, the air corresponds to the sound. Music is propagated only if air is present and only if generated by the performer's air. From vital element to musical form, typically Florentine. The air, intended as a beautiful Renaissance melody, born within the Camerata de ’Bardi and became the pivot of melodrama in its most diverse forms. And in many of these forms of Aria appear the Brass who duet with a solo voice; the horn in the "Hunting air" typology, the trumpet in the "Air of war" trumpet.
And Air is that extraordinary solo moment, dramaturgically static, suspended in and out of time, of reflection, of conducting the spectator in the intimate feeling of the character, of the performer.
And it is in the multiple meanings of Air, in this Cosmic Breath, that our Festival will take place, because the air is vibrant, as the great German composer Johannes Brahms said «there are so many melodies that roam the air that I must be careful not to step on them ».