Yet More Moving Performances from the Vibrant 2023 Spring Arts Festival

The Spring Arts Festival “springs” on and cultural pursuits take front and centre in Monaco. HelloMonaco took the opportunity provided by the Spring Arts Festival to visit two more classical concerts in the Principality… highlighted also by visits by Princess Caroline to whom we owe the pleasure of always being able to rely on moving performances each year at Printemps des Arts.

At the head of the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, on March 31st at the Rainier III Auditorium Lio Kuokman mirrored two emblematic works in the history of American music: The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives and a fresco that could answer it, Symphony No. 3 by Aaron Copland. Between these monuments, François Meïmoun revisits the myth of Antigone in a creation for narrator and orchestra, to which Laurent Stocker lent his voice.

This World premiere was commissioned by Printemps des Arts, with the support of the Francis and Mica Salabert Foundation.

Diotima Quartet Concerts at the Musée Océanographique on April 2nd

In two concerts, the Diotima Quartet covered a century of chamber music, from post-Romanticism to contemporary creation, from Béla Bartók’s Quartet No. 1 to an unpublished work by Philippe Schoeller. And dwells on the horrors of the Second World War, which can be heard as well in Bartók and György Ligeti as in Different Trains by Steve Reich.

Written over more than a century, they together summarize an evolution leading from post-romanticism towards the modernity inherent in the “first 20th century” (quartets by Béla Bartók). Underlined are the tensions linked to the Second World War (Sixth Quartet by Bartók, Métamorphoses nocturnes by György Ligeti), and evoke the memory of the Shoah (Different Trains by Steve Reich) and still echo our questions in the face of the challenges of time (Second Quartet by Ligeti, Extasis by Philippe Schoeller). Throughout the movements, everyone could grasp the astonishing vitality of a genre that has never stopped renewing itself.

Spring Arts Festival

The Printemps des Arts under the presidency of H.R.H. Princess of Hanover, is a true institution in the Monegasque artistic panorama. It was born 37 years ago from the desire of Prince Rainier III to make the Principality a preferred stage for major masters and innovators in the Art of Music.

This one-month event, aims at portraying novel musical works and composers with a repertoire from the eleventh to the twenty-first century. But it is not just music. It includes art exhibits, round tables, master classes with maestros and musical creations in order to bring the new generation to the very heart of the music.

Legendary concert halls

The Spring Arts Festival venues play as great a role in its success as the performances themselves, with audiences getting the chance to discover talented artists in extraordinary surroundings every year.

Hosting top international performers for 2023 are the Salle Garnier at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, the Amphitheatre and Salle des Arts at One Monte-Carlo, and the Crystal Bar and Salle Belle Epoque at the Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo, as well as the Oceanographic Museum, Prince Rainier III Academy of Music, Grimaldi Forum, Saint-Charles Church, Princess Grace Theatre and Monaco Yacht Club.