Summer camp for piano-minded adults: Why the Trasimeno Music Festival belongs on your bucket list!
Dear friends of PPI,
If you’ve been paying attention at our pre-concert lectures and are attuned to “PPI-adjacent” chatter, chances are that you’ve heard mention of the Trasimeno Music Festival. Former PPI Artistic Curator (Seasons 21/22 and 24/25) and great friend of Bill’s, Angela Hewitt, has been hosting this intimate and unique summer concert series around the shores of Lake Trasimeno for the past 21 years, and Bill himself has been instrumental in the production for 16. Having just completed my very own maiden voyage to Umbria, I am here to report today that, if attending summer camp is considered a rite of passage for American kids, attending the Trasimeno Music Festival should very well be a rite of passage for the truly piano-devoted!
A typical summer camp, by definition, is a program for children and teens during school holidays that combines fun activities with personal growth. Participants make new friends, learn independence, and try exciting new hobbies. Activities can include a combination of outdoor adventures and specialized skills, and are heavily focused on fostering a sense of community.
If, by this definition, navigating a rental car on narrow Italian roads could be seen as a branch of “personal growth” and “learning independence”, and befriending strangers and successfully orienting oneself in breathtaking historical locations considered an “exciting new hobby”, the Trasimeno Music Festival ticks all the boxes of an unforgettable summer camp experience, full-on igniting a sense of childlike giddiness and adolescent passion in newcomers and seasoned pilgrims alike.
Outdoor adventures (in the form of dreamy outdoor concerts)? Check!
Specialized skills (in the form of listening intently and engaging with music deeply)? Check!
Fostering a sense of community? Check and check!
Despite sweltering heat (an average of 96 degrees Fahrenheit, all day, every day, and no airconditioning to be seen), limited sleep (jetlag, too much great espresso and a delightful sense of being wired after each night’s concert), and the daily challenge of not getting lost or overindulge in pasta and gelato, the seven days of the festival swooped by, like Italian swallows, in daze of jaw-dropping wonder. Truly, most of us probably consider this state of being solely attainable for the carefree under-18 crowd: A week of (almost) complete dissociation from duty, days dictated only by when the next meal and the next recital takes place, and an overwhelming, constant sense of how did ordinary life possibly get this good?
On the musical menu, night by spectacular night, were world-class recitalists presenting the highest standard of music in the most intimate of settings. (You can check out the program here or get snippets of the concerts on the festival’s Instagram feed.) Angela herself featured in every performance, effortlessly shifting between the role of accompanist, chamber musician and soloist. Audience members, hailing from Australia to Alaska, mingled like old friends, joyfully picking up where many of them left off 365 days prior. The result? A polyglot symphony of conversations in smatterings of German, Italian, English, French and Dutch, a sonata of developing daily themes (coffee time, pool time, meal time, concert time) and the intimacy of feeling like musicians and audience share in a perfectly balanced two-part counterpoint. After all, to quote the great Sir John Rutter, there is no greater joy than “to roam free among centuries of music”. Except, perhaps, to roam free among centuries of music in Umbria, with Angela Hewitt. That, dear friends, is a delight and a privilege to experience first hand!
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