A thousand years of music, a thousand candles, and a thousand guests; a unique setting on the piazza of the San Miniato al Monte abbey, with the skyline of Florence acting as a backdrop to the stage that will host an orchestra of 25 musicians on Thursday 21 June, from 7.30 pm until sunset. It is the Millennium Sunset Concert, a charity show sponsored by the Municipality of Florence and the Council of the Tuscany Region, supported by the Palazzo Tornabuoni Associazione and organized by the Passignano Association, a non-profit born in Florence in 2017 with the aim of protecting architecture, art and Italian excellence through large fund raising events aimed at a single well-defined project.
The entire evening is designed as a continuous flow of music, theater and dance, marked by the narrating voice of the actor Glauco Mauri, who will retrace the history of
Florence and the Abbey of San Miniato over the last thousand years. The music will follow the same path, accompanying the audience on a journey from the Middle Ages to the contemporary. The latter will be represented by an unpublished work, written for the occasion by Ian Cecil Scott, Florentine composer and executive director of the event, premiered on the evening of the Millennium
Concert.
To open the concert music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance will be performed on ancient instruments by the Orpheus Ensemble.
Following the orchestra La Filharmonie, composed of 25 musicians and conducted by Maestro Nima Keshavarzi, with Francesca Caligaris (soprano) and Antonia Fino (contralto), will perform music from the classical, operatic and romantic repertoire, including the Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi,
O my Dear Babbino, aria from the opera Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini, and the Botticellian triptych by Ottorino Respighi.
The music will be accompanied by theatrical performances by Medici Dynasty theatrical production, which will give life to some of the major events of the millennium.
The journey through time will end with the performance of the Millennium Composition , followed by a prayer by Abbot Bernardo, which will be followed by a Gregorian chant and a surprise for all guests. The concert will end when the sun sets behind the hills on the day of the summer solstice, making the audience slide into the light of vespers, a highly symbolic moment for the Benedictine community.
