LakeComo Music Festival: Elegia - Benedict Klöckner e Floraleda Sacchi

JS BACH: Suite in Mi bemolle maggiore BWV 1010 for Cello
Prélude
Allemande
Courante
Sarabande
Bourrée I
Bourrée II
Gigue

J. MASSENET:
Elégie op. 10 n. 5
Meditation (da Thaïs)

C. SAINT-SAËNS: Le Cygne (da Le carnaval des animaux R.125)

G. FAURÉ: Après un rêve op. 7 n. 1

P. GLASS: Metamorphosis for Harp

N. PAGANINI: Variations sur une thème de Rossini sur un corde seule

Admission includes a visit to Villa Carlotta. You can access the gardens and the museum as early as 15:00. The concert will take place at 18:30.

Box office at Villa Carlotta opens at 15:00

THE ARTISTS

“Remarkable, really remarkable, perfect playing! Absolute control of technique, intonation and color”  Daniel Barenboim
“I really loved his playing” Simon Rattle

Benedict Klõckner, born in 1989, is one of the outstanding artists of his generation. He has won numerous competitions and awards, most recently the OPUS Klassik 2021. He performs worldwide as a soloist with renowned orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, the MDR Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie, the Kremerata Baltica, the Camerata Oslo and the Munich Chamber Orchestra and works with renowned conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Ingo Metzmacher, Michael Sanderling, Clemens Schuldt, Heinrich Schiff and Sir Simon Rattle.
He appears in concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall New York, Kennedy Center Washington, Symphony Hall Chicago, Arts Center Seoul, Musikverein Vienna, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Tonhalle Zurich, Gasteig in Munich, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Rudolfinum Prague, Athenaeum Bucharest and Barbican, Cadogan and Wigmore Hall London.
Championed by such maestros as Daniel Barenboim and Sir Simon Rattle, he performs at venues including the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Carnegie Hall in New York, Symphony Hall in Chicago, John. F Kennedy Center in Washington, Tonhalle Zurich, Cadogan Hall and the Barbican Centre in London, Athenäum Bukarest, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Musikverein Wien.
A keen chamber musician, Benedict is performing with artists such as Sir András Schiff, Anne Sophie Mutter, Gidon Kremer, Christoph Eschenbach, Antoine Tamestit, Emmanuel Ax, Fazil Say, Lisa Batiashvili, Yuri Bashmet, Benjamin Grosvenor, Lars Vogt and Christian Tetzlaff.
Benedict Kloeckner regularly collaborates with the great contemporary composers of our time. In 2018 he performed the world premiere of Wolfgang Rihm’s Double Concerto for 2 Cellos and Strings.
At the Seoul Arts Center, he was able to premiere Eun Hwa Cho’s Cello Concerto together with the Korean Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Christoph Poppen. With the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg under Peter Tilling, he also gave the Austrian premiere of Dai Fujikura’s Cello Concerto in Salzburg.
In 2020 he gave the world premiere of 7 works composed for him by Howard Blake, Elena Kats Chernin, José Elizondo, Dai Fujikura, Geoffrey Gordon, Bongani Ndodana-Breen and Eric Tanguy.
The premiere of a new cello concerto by Bongani Ndodana-Breen with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra is planned for 2022.
His CD recordings have been highly praised by the international press and nominated for the German Record Critics’ Award, among others. He has recorded in collaboration with artists such as Gidon Kremer, conductors Heinrich Schiff and Michael Sanderling, pianists Danae Dörken, Anna Fedorova, Yu Kosuge and José Gallardo, as well as composers Wolfgang Rihm and Howard Blake.
In October 2021 Brilliant classics releases his recording of the Bach Cello Suites.
He latest recordings of Wolfgang Rihm “Über die Linie” was released in summer 2020 and won the Piccicato Supersonic Award.
Since 2014 Benedict is the artistic director and founder of the “International Music Festival Koblenz” presenting concerts with artists such as Vilde Frang, Benjamin Grosvenor , Boris Giltburg and orchestras such as the Georgian and Munich Chamber orchestras.
Benedict Klöckner studied with Martin Ostertag, and as a young soloist of the Kronberg Academy Masters with Frans Helmerson and Gary Hoffman, graciously financed by the “Angela Winkler-Scholarship”, from 2009 to 2017. Benedict Kloeckner is also very grateful to Steven Isserlis, Gidon Kremer, Michael Sanderling, and Sir Andras Schiff for the musical insight and support they have offered for his artistic development and his former teachers Martin Rummel and Gabriel Mesado.
He plays an Italian Cello by Francesco Rugeri (Cremona, 1690), formerly played by Maurice Gendron and a bow by Etienne Pajeot (Mirecourt, 1820).

Harpist, composer and producer, Floraleda Sacchi is part of a new avant-garde generation of musicians who go beyond conventions and styles as shown by her live shows and recordings for labels such as Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and Amadeus Arte. Floraleda has contributed to bringing the Classical idiom into the 21st century, notably with combining it with technology and new media.
She played all over the world, won prizes at 16 international music competitions and several awards: among them, in 2018, a Latin Grammy, “Best Classical Album” category.
She performed as soloist in major halls and festivals:
Carnegie Hall-Weill Recital Hall (New York – presented by Italian Artist Found.), United Nations Palace (New York), Gewandhaus (Leipzig), Konzerthaus (Berlin), Auditorium Binyanei Hauma (Jerusalem), Sala Verdi (Milan), Matsuo Hall (Tokyo), Prefectural Hall Alti (Kyoto), Salle Varèse (Lyon), Gasteig (Munich), Concerts de la Croix Rouge (Geneva), River Concert Series (Washington), Gessler Hall (Vancouver), CBC-Glenn Gould Studio (Toronto), Società del Quartetto Milano, Festival Musica no Museo (Rio de Janeiro), Auditorium della Conciliazione (Roma), Octobre Musical (Cartage-Tunis), Quintai Hall (China), etc.
Floraleda appeared as soloist with several orchestras:
In 2014 she recorded a new concerto by Manuel De Sica with Filarmonica Toscanini published by Brilliant Classics.
In 2018 she premiered a concerto dedicated to her by composer Claudia Montero. Recorded with The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra the concerto was included in the album “Magica y Misteriosa” that received the Latin Grammy in 2018 as Best Classical Album.
Since 2015, alongside the Classical repertoire, she has embarked on a new, more personal path in making music, composing her own pieces and applying electronics, looper and effects to the harp, to develop an extremely personal sound and a new artistic identity. Her first project in this direction, “Darklight” (2017), remained for a long time at the top of the Classical music chart in various countries of the world. She is one of the most known and listened to harpists in the world on streaming platforms with more than 100.000 listener per month.
She composed music for theatre and cinema. One of the best known projects is her music for the play “Donna non rieducabile”.The show – which had more than 170 performances (including the European Parliament in Brussels to main Italian theaters) –  was transformed by RAI 2 into a movie presented at the 66th Venice Film Festival and published in DVD by PromoMusic.
When 21, she won the Harpa Award (Prague, 1999) for her book on Elias Parish Alvars, a Romantic author for whom she is still considered the reference expert. She has written several articles appeared on major harp journals (American Harp Journal, Harpa, World Harp Congress Review) contributing to expand and discover Harp repertoire.
Born in Como (Italy), Floraleda was inspired to play the harp by Annie Challan’s recordings. She studied at Como Conservatory and perfectionated in Germany, USA and Canada with Alice Giles, Alice Chalifoux and Judy Loman.
She is Harp Professor at “F. Torrefranca” Conservatory (Italian University) in Vibo Valentia.