Ľubomír Gašpar will play a special concert at the Viva Musica! festival
Visitors may also enjoy concerts in city gardens.

Bratislava, 29. 5. 2024

Festival Viva Musica! ponúkne aj toto leto viacero jedinečných spojení. Jedno také sa uskutoční 1. augThis summer once again, Viva Musica! festival will offer a number of unique combinations. One of these will be held on August 1, 2024 in the Forecourt of the Old Town Hall. Cimbalom and double bass player Ľubomír Gašpar, together with the multi-instrumentalist Adam Ben Ezra, will perform a special programme commissioned by the festival. Part of the landmark 20th annual event will be the much-loved open-air concerts subtitled Musical Gardens. These are being held for the second year in succession in Bratislava gardens and parks.

The Slovak cimbalom (hammered dulcimer) and double bass player Ľubomír Gašpar is a classically trained musician with a wealth of cross-genre initiatives, from classical music through jazz to world music. Holder of a Radio_Head Award for his album The Point of View, he collaborates with elite artists from home and abroad in a variety of musical fields (Roby Lakatos Ensemble, SOLE, Manuša, Ľubomír Gašpar Cimbal Project). His multi-genre orientation is reflected also in his compositional work, which accordingly is highly colourful and diverse. In concert he presents the cimbalom as a unique solo instrument full of contrasts and colours, accompanied by the outstanding string orchestra NANOVO ensemble conducted by Karolína Krigovská. “This programme was produced specially for Viva Musica! festival. Playing at this festival was something I desired to do, and I look forward to it all the more because it will be in collaboration with the phenomenal double bass player and multi-instrumentalist Adam Ben Ezra on the festival’s 20th anniversary,” Ľubomír Gašpar says. The concert will also feature music in arrangements by Stano Palúch.

The concept of multi-instrumentalist is frequently over-used, but in connection with Adam Ben Ezra it is entirely appropriate. He began playing the violin as a five-year-old and further took up the guitar at the age of nine. During his adolescence he gradually added the piano, clarinet, flute, and eventually also the beat box, to his musical armoury. But it was the double bass (he immediately fell in love with its sound) that fully satisfied his artistic soul. Along with jazz, funk, R&B and latino, he gradually began incorporating electronic elements also in his concerts. “Collaborating with Ľubomír is a true joy for me. I'm thrilled to explore the rich connection between our musical styles, and I believe our collaboration will be a memorable experience for the Bratislava public,” Adam Ben Ezra added.

The concert will be held on August 1, 2024 at 20:00 on the historic Forecourt of the Old Town Hall – at the place where twenty years previously, in August 2005, the Viva Musica! festival (then still known as Bratislava Musical Gardens) held its first concert.

New Generation

Actually, it was that opening year of the festival, and also the highly popular series of concerts Music in the Park which the organisers held before the pandemic in Janko Kráľ Park, which inspired the idea of holding a cycle of open-air concerts with the subtitle Musical Gardens. This year, those will be held in six Bratislava gardens, and they will be the occasion for festival to introduce some outstanding young talents from Slovakia and abroad.

“Viva Musica! is twenty years old and is an established and mature music festival which is inseparably part of summertime in the capital city. For our second “landmark decade” we have put together a number of combinations, and one of them is, alongside the greatest world stars of classical music, to present and systematically support young talents. Granted, we sometimes did this in our past events also, but regularity was lacking,” the festival director Janka Kovalčik explains. “We are giving this programmatic line the working title of “next generation”, and we think of it as one of the key pillars of the festival’s sustainability. At the same time, I am optimistic that the programme as it is constituted will appeal not only to our regular visitors but also to a young generation of listeners,” Kovalčik added.

Musical Gardens will open with the virtuoso double bass player, conductor and composer Indi Stivín, who is one of the most striking phenomena in the young generation of Czech musicians. At the age of 16 he presented a solo recital at the Prague Spring international festival, which was an important success in launching his artistic career. “The concert will feature pearls of the classicist double bass repertoire, with a marked Czech flavour. The dramaturgy will lightly touch also on the Baroque and on my own composition for double bass,” Indi Stivín says. With his ensemble Collegium Stivinum he will appear on July 6 at 19:00 in the newly-opened Grassalkovich Garden.

On Saturday July 20 at 19:00 the audience at the Liszt Garden will be able to savour an outstanding wind quintet from Spain, KamBrass Quintet, which is a fine example of what happens when the limitless curiosity of top players on brass wind instruments combines with an unflagging passion for chamber music. They will bring to Bratislava an invigorating dramaturgy entitled “Does it suit(e)?”, which will conduct listeners through the world of the dance suite and its diverse treatments in musical art across the centuries. The last Saturday of July (July 27 at 19:00) will belong to two other striking talents – the Slovak violinist Terézia Hledíková and the Czech violinist Daniel Matejča. They will perform with the chamber orchestra Sinfonietta Bratislava in the garden of the picturesque Albrecht House on Kapitulská Street, which is a place of importance in the musical life of Bratislava.

In August, Musical Gardens will continue with a concert by the Slovak trio Percussion Collective, consisting of Adam Druga, Peter Solárik and Martin Zajac, who will appear on August 3 at 17:00 in Janko Kráľ Park. The cycle will be concluded by the ambitious young string quartet Stories Quartet, whose members are Karolína Krigovská (1st violin), Alžbeta Godovičová (2nd violin), Patrik Klačanský (viola) and Aleksei Kardash (cello). The quartet will play on August 10 at 17:00 in the garden of the newly reconstructed Manor House in Čunovo. In the event of inclement weather, the open-air concerts will be transferred to alternative venues.

The international music festival Viva Musica! appeared in 2005 and this year celebrates its 20th birthday. From July 4 to August 15, 2024 it will present 13 concerts at various venues in Bratislava. Once again, part of the festival will be the much-loved concerts in city gardens and parks with the subtitle Musical Gardens, evoking the festival’s first annual event, which was held under precisely that name: Bratislava Musical Gardens.

Tickets are available at www.vivamusica.sk and at Ticketportal.
The festival has been supported from public funds by the Slovak Arts Council.