Festival Homenaje Fifth Edition is ready to start!

Padua, 6^th – 14^th September 2025

After the success of past editions, Barco Teatro is glad to present the fifth edition of the "Homenaje" International Guitar Festival, dedicated to the classical guitar.

We will have the pleasure to host several internationally acclaimed guitarists (alongside exciting returns from the last editions) involved in solo and chamber recitals, as well as in a series of integrated events (such as public masterclasses and conferences): this is of great artistic and cultural interest for the City of Padua (inscribed on the 2022 Unesco World Heritage list for its fourteenth-century fresco cycles) and its surroundings, as well as for the wide audience of both "experts" and amateurs on an international scale.

The fifth edition will be held from Saturday 6^th to Sunday 14^th of September 2025.

Consistently with the previous editions’ programme, Festival Homenaje plans to commission a new composition: this time it will be for a guitar and voice (soprano) duo and the recipient will be the Italian Composer Carlo Galante.

During the Festival, the performer students participate as true protagonists: in addition to having the opportunity to follow 2 lessons with 2 different teachers of their choice, they participate in the final concert dedicated to them, with the possibility of winning the Homenaje Scholarship of € 1000, which will be awarded to the student who participated fully in the activities of Festival.
Furthermore, they participate for free in the dinners offered by Barco Teatro at the end of each concert and which take place in the theater: an unique opportunities to sit at the table with the protagonists of the concerts, to experience moments not only of conviviality but of study and comparison with teachers such as David Russell, Stephen Goss, Lorenzo Micheli and other protagonists of the Festival.

The Festival offers:

- Concerts

- Conferences

- Masterclasses

CONCERTS

The concert schedule presents a series of very important national and international musicians, coming from different cultural backgrounds.

We will have 4 concerts in total, 2 solo recitals and 2 chamber music concerts: first of all, the important confirmation of the return of one of the most beloved guitarist in the world and a protagonist of the 4 past editions, the Spanish/Scottish guitarist David Russell, who expressed himself the desire to give continuity and to return again to playing and teaching at the Festival: he will play the opening concert at Scuola della Carità on Saturday 6^th.. About the second solo recital, the Italian player Lorenzo Micheli will play the last concert of the 5^th edition of the Festival on Friday 14^th at Barco Teatro, opened by the winner of the past edition’s Barco Teatro Scholarship, the young guitarist Sofia Silvestrini.

The chamber ensembles involved are two different duos: on Sunday 7^th (Barco Teatro), the Guitar- Voice Duo Cavaliero-Susani, formed by the English-Hungarian Soprano Anna Cavaliero and the Italian guitarist - composer Giacomo Susani, will include in its program the première of the 2025 Barco Teatro commission; on Wednesday 10^th (Barco Teatro), the Guitar Duo Ramelli-Savigni, formed by the Italian guitarists Marco Ramelli and Enrica Savigni, will play on different historical instruments a program of music of late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries.

TICKETS BOOKING: 

 

MASTERCLASSES

Like during the previous editions, most performers of the Festival will hold individual lessons open to the public on the stage of Barco Teatro throughout the week: the lessons are reserved for the Festival’s performing-students, but it is also possible to attend just as auditor-student or as audience. In addition to the performers, Festival Homenaje will also include Stephen Goss teaching, for a total of 6 masterclasses, that will be held at Barco Teatro according to the set schedule.

CONFERENCES

2 conferences scheduled this year: the first, IGRC Conference, providing a view on the different fields of research that focus on the classical guitar, will host international speakers who will give presentations on topics related to their artistic research linked to the guitar. The conference will be coordinated by the Welsh composer and guitarist Stephen Goss, as Director of the IGRC - International Guitar Research Centre of the University of Surrey (UK).

The second conference, Prospettive del Suono, is dedicated to guitar making with an immersion into different sounds and in the organology of historical and modern instruments: the event will include frontal lectures and debates as well as a workshop (reserved for enrolled students) in which luthier Gabriele Lodi will provide some extraordinary instruments from his prestigious collection TouchTheSound Project to be tested. The event will also involve the Duo Ramelli - Savigni who will engage in a debate on the sound qualities of different instruments perceived from different perspectives, before giving tangible proof of this in their concert that will be held in the evening.

The conferences will take place at Barco Teatro and they are free.

 

THE PROGRAMME