Concerts in City Gardens and Parks

A novelty of the 19th annual Viva Musica! festival is chamber concerts in city gardens and parks, subtitled Musical Gardens. The title evokes the initial year of the festival, 2005, when it was held under the title Musical Gardens of Bratislava, and also the successful concert series Music in the Park (everywhere), held in Janko Kráľ Park.

On the first day of the holidays, July 1, 2023 at 17:00 in the magnificent spaces of the Liszt Garden, which is part of the University Library in Bratislava, the chamber orchestra Sinfonietta Bratislava, led by the violinist Pavel Bogacz jun., will appear with three outstanding young soloists – the violinists Miriam Minková and Ferdinand Slezák and the cellist Juraj Škoda. Miriam, Ferdinand and Juraj will present works by Antonio Vivaldi, Joseph Haydn and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Admission to the concert is free (until the space has full capacity).

The cellists Katarína Zajacová and Branislav Bielik perform in the orchestra of the Slovak National Theatre Opera, but besides orchestral playing they are both intensively engaged in chamber playing in a variety of groupings. Their shared artistic enthusiasm inspired these two performers to establish the cello duo Cello Appassionato, where they devote themselves principally to performing the rich original literature for this combination. They will demonstrate the diversity and captivating sound of these works in concert on July 8, 2023 at 17:00 in the Garden of the Albrecht House. 

From Urban Fusions to American Minimalism 

EnsembleSpectrum is currently one of the most impressive and active ensembles specialising in 20th and 21st century chamber music in Slovakia. Having initially desired as students to present new and less well-known works, with the passage of years this activity has become a passion and a life’s mission for the members of the ensemble. At a concert on July 15, 2023 at 17:00 in the Baroque Garden in Bratislava Castle, EnsembleSpectrum will present work by the relatively little-known, but all the more interesting, American composer Julius Eastman (1940 – 1990). Eastman was one of the eccentric figures on the New York scene, an electrifying singer, pianist, conductor, choreographer, and above all a uniquely distinctive and original composer. Taking a certain part of his work, we might assign Eastman a place among minimalist composers, and unquestionably we may rate as minimalist his Femenine, from 1974, which will be performed at the concert.  

Fourth concert of the Musical Gardens series will be performed by the S.V.A. Trio, a unique grouping on the Czech and Slovak music scene, with an untraditional sound. Its work may be assigned to the genre of jazz fusion. The trio is made up of Alexey Aslamas(violin), Vladan Malinjak (viola) and Šimon Marek (cello) and focuses on a kind of creative art which they themselves describe as urban fusion. In this, besides their shared musical influences and outputs, they also reflect the specificity of life within the big city, making fusion of all that a person can hear in the city, or fusion of everything with anything. At Viva Musica! festival S.V.A. Trio presents music from the eponymous debut album Urban Fusions, released in 2021. The concert will be held on July 23, 2023 at 17:00 in Průger-Wallner Garden (Nekrasovova street).