"ReGeneration Festival": a summer festival of live music and opera in the Boboli Gardens

From 26 to 29 August 2020, the Boboli Gardens will host four evenings of music, opera, symphonic, jazz concerts and chamber music at the Lawn of Columns. Free admission and reservation required.

The special edition of this ReGeneration Festival is a gift to the city of Florence deeply longed by young English producers Maximilian Fane, Roger Granville and Frankie Parham of The New Generation Festival, which every year puts up and organizes this festival of music. This year the collaboration with the Uffizi Galleries is enhanced by the common desire to re-launch those cultural activities seriously affected by the pandemic; an initiative which many other city and cultural institutions have enthusiastically joined, such as the Mascarade Opera Foundation, the Corsini.Events Group, operating partner of the Festival, as well as generous international donors.

The programme

August 26 h 8.30pm  (repeat performance on 29th)

Under the conduction of Sándor Károlyi, Gioachino Rossini's Cinderella is played by the Senzaspine Orchestra, a Bolognese ensemble of under-35 guys with the mission of bringing classical music to all ages and all social levels. The stage, set up in the Lawn of Columns, has the same size as the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Direction is by French Jean-Romain Vesperini. The cast wears stage costumes by designer Anna Maria Heinreich executed by Sartoria Tirelli, awarded with many Oscar Prizes and famous for their stage costumes all over the world.

August 27 h 8.30pm 

The program, directed by Maestro Daniele Rustioni, includes the overture from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, Concerto n. 1 for cello by Joseph Haydn and Symphony n. 7 by Ludwig van Beethoven. The performance is played by the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana from Fiesole Music School. Founded thirty years ago by Piero Farulli as a professional laboratory for children who have just left the Conservatoire and now managed by Alain Meunier, the OGI - which renews its components year after year - has always been directed by highly renowned conductors like Riccardo Muti and Daniele Gatti.

August 28 h 8.30pm 

The Three Divas: some of the best American jazz musicians stage the 1920s ambiance of Broadway and Hollywood. A show produced with Piers Playfair, founder of the Catskill Jazz Factory, which has an opera singer, a blues lady and a jazz voica among its main protagonists.

Side events and special guests

There are also plenty of side events that can be enjoyed in the Boboli Gardens from the late afternoon. Already in the Ammannati Courtyard of Pitti Palace, before entering the Gardens, spectators can see the performances of chamber groups of the Conservatoire of Florence, the Music School of Fiesole, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana.

In the Lemon-House Garden is Director Edoardo Zucchetti and the Associazione Artiglieria. At the Meridiana is the exhibition of costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini, winner of four "David by Donatello" (the last one, this year, for Pinocchio, movie by Matteo Garrone).

At the Lawn of Columns, after the show scheduled for 27th August, the jazz pianist Dan Tepfer (also known for playing with Lee Konitz) goes on stage, while on 28th it is the turn of Devotion drag-queen group.

EXTRA EVENTS REGENERATION FESTIVAL

During the day, The ReGeneration Festival will involve the city of Florence in a series of events organized at the Palazzo Corsini Garden in Prato, including Cinderella for children directed by Patrick Lynch and the screening of the short film Babal by Teodora Pampaloni accompanied by music by Menura Vocal Ensemble, group of female voices only from Sesto Fiorentino.

Late at night other concerts at the Manifattura Tabacchi with the presence, on the last evening, of DJ John Swing (Francesco Giannini), thanks to the collaboration with HAPE Collective.