From August 31 to September 28, 2024, the Festival Barocco Alessandro Stradella will return to Viterbo, north of Rome. It will open on August 31 with Stradella's oratorio "San Giovanni Battista". The artistic director of the festival Andrea De Carlo, the renowned specialists for the work of the myth-enshrouded composer, will perform his most famous work together with the Ensemble Mare Nostrum.

On the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the premiere in Rome, the recording of the oratorio "San Giovanni Battista" will be released in the anniversary year 2025.

Following the opening concert in the Chiesa di Santa Maria Nuova on August 31, the concerts of the second and third week of the festival are in the spirit of a dialog between past and present. They include internationally renowned ensembles and artists such as Le Concert de l'Hostel Dieu (September 7), which will focus on female Baroque composers, the nyckelharpa virtuoso Marco Ambrosini (September 8), the actor and tenor Pino de Vittorio's tarantellas (September 13) and Stradella Y's Massenzio 2035 project (September 14).

The last two weekends offer musical reflections on J. S. Bach with double bassist Daniele Roccato (September 21), Neapolitan Baroque music with the ensemble I Talenti Vulcanici (September 22) and music by the virtuoso Baroque violinist and composer Giuseppe Tartini with violinists Zefira Valova, first violin of Il Pomo d'Oro, and Iskrena Yordanova (September 28).

The Stradella Project of the ARCANA/OUTHERE label and the Ensemble Mare Nostrum have been honoured with numerous awards from the international music media for their rediscoveries and recordings of the works of Alessandro Stradella (1643-1682). In addition to Stradella's compositions, some of which will be performed and published as world premieres, the oratorio S. Rosa di Viterbo by Alessandro Melani (1639-1703) was recorded  in 2023.

The Festival Barocco Alessandro Stradella is a journey through the musical, architectural and scenic attractions of the province of Viterbo. It combines research, education, staging, dissemination and music editions. The rediscovery of Renaissance and Baroque music by the great composers associated with this area, such as Alessandro Stradella, who spent his childhood and youth in Nepi, Domenico Massenzio and Tullio Cima da Ronciglione, Domenico and Virgilio Mazzocchi from Civita Castellana, is a central theme of the festival

The forward-looking cultural project seeks to combine attention for the immense Italian heritage with modern languages and trends and to promote young people's awareness of the Baroque and contemporary languages, also through the practice of improvisation.

The Festival is supported by the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Lazio Region, the Municipality of Viterbo and the Carivit Foundation.

www.festivalstradella.org

www.ensemblemarenostrum.com