The 10th anniversary Festival runs from 3rd March to 14th April with an unmissable line up.
Launched in 2001 by a group of dedicated music lovers, who have since established the Friends of Al Ain Classics Festival under the chairmanship of Zaki Nusseibeh, this year’s Festival is centred around Al Ain’s Al Jahili Fort with opera performances in the Municipality Theatre.
With a debut appearance from Lebanese singer Majida Al Roumi, highlights also include a return from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, led by young British star conductor Daniel Harding and Turkish pianist Fazil Say.
The programme
3rd March: Majida El Roumi. Al Jahili Fort. 8pm. The Lebanese soprano will perform for the first time in the UAE, to a ladies- only audience.
4th March: Majida El Roumi. Al Jahili Fort, 8pm.
5th March: Symphonic Masterworks from the New World. Al Jahili Fort. 8pm. Conducted by the young British talent Daniel Harding and with Fazil Say on piano, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra will present New World classics including Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.
6th March: Piano Recital Celebrating Schumann and Chopin. Al Jahili Fort Courtyard, 8pm. In the intimate courtyard of Al Jahili Fort, Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa will perform the music of Schumann and Chopin.
11th March: Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. Al Jahili Fort, 8pm. David Afkham will conduct the Mozarteum Orchestra with Saleem Abboud Ashkar on piano. The programme includes Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony and Schumann’s Piano Concerto,
12th March: Mozart, La Finta Giardiniera. Municipality Theatre, 8pm. French conductor Guillaume Tourniaire is the musical brain behind this version of Mozart’s opera, which he has especially adapted for this year’s Festival. Fully staged opera in original Italian with Arabic subtitles, Tourniaire will lead the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg with the story presented in Arabic by actor Habib Ghuloom.
13th March: Mozart, La Finta Giardiniera. Municipality Theatre, 8pm. Guillaume Tourniaire returns with a second performance of La Finta Giardiniera, this time for ladies only.
14th April: The Magic of Opera. Al Jahili Fort, 8pm. John Fiore will conduct the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro La Fenice in some of the most beautiful Italian opera choruses and overtures.
Daniel Harding.
Harding is the Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He began his career assisting Sir Simon Rattle at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; he made his professional debut there in 1994. He went on to assist Claudio Abbado at the Berlin Philharmonic and conducted that orchestra for the first time at the 1996 Berlin Festival.
Fazil Say.
Fazil Say began playing the piano at the age of four and continued his music training in Ankara State Conservatory as a student of Special Status for Highly Talented Kids. He graduated from piano and composition in 1987. Besides playing the piano, he has composed many oratorios, piano concertos and pieces of music for chamber.
Majida Al Roumi.
The Lebanese soprano started her musical career in the early 1970s when she won a Télé Liban talent show. Majida has performed at some of the most prestigious festivals and concert halls in the world, including Carnegie Hall in New York, the Athens Concert Hall in Greece and the Royal Albert Hall in London.
David Afkham.
Introduced to classical music at the age of six with piano and violin lessons, Afkham went on to the University of Music in Freiburg when he was just 15. Afkham has diverse conducting experiences including the London Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Civic Orchestra and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.
Saleem Abboud Ashkar.
Born in 1976 in Nazareth, Saleem Abboud Ashkar studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hanover. It was Zubin Mehta who discovered the young pianist at 17 and positioned him as soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra to play Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto. In 2006 he made his Salzburg debut at the Mozart-Woche with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Manfred Honeck.
Guillaume Tourniaire.
French-born Guillaume Tourniaire studied piano and conducting at the Geneva Conservatoire. In 1993 he became musical and artistic director of the Motet de Genève choir; he made his conducting debut in 1998 at the Grand Théâtre de Genève with Prokofiev’s opera Betrothal in a Monastery and then at Opéra National de Paris with Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps.
Charlie Kennedy
