We are happy to invite you again to enjoy exceptional music in an enchanting setting.
Crans-Montana Classics is the enchantment of music and the euphoria of the peaks, a perfect symbiosis between Art and Nature.
A word from our President Gérard Bagnoud
“Turn to face the sun and the shadow will be behind you.”
I hope the wisdom of this Maori proverb will enlighten the beginning of our year, the time when we turn to start a new stage. These last few months have taught us to be resilient and adaptable and I’m very happy to welcome you to a series of flamboyant concerts this winter season.
CMClassics has spread the sound of great music over the Haut Plateau for 10 years now. Our concerts and events, becoming ever more popular, add to the cultural life of Crans Montana, as well as bringing together music lovers from different backgrounds. This makes me very happy. You can rest assured we are doing everything we can to continue to offer you rich and varied musical gems throughout the year.
These January concerts, launching the Valais cultural year, seem to me the perfect moment to offer our warm thanks to our Partners, Sponsors and Friends for their generous and indispensable support.
The whole Crans Montana team is happy to see you again and joins with me in wishing you an enjoyable evening of music, as well as offering you our best wishes for the New Year.
Yours truly,
Gérard Bagnoud
A word from our musical Director Michael Guttman
Dear Friends of CMClassics,
From Scarlatti to Bartok, via Pergolesi, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Strauss and many others, Crans Montana Classics’ winter season is once again rich and varied.
You can discover, or re-discover, the young soloists of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, and musical masters like Renaud Capuçon, Maurice Steger and Ilya Gringolts during concerts that offer you precious moments of discovery or happy reunions with the much-loved and familiar.
As is traditional, we begin our season on New Year’s day with a festive programme including the special participation of Renaud Capuçon, who travels the world with his magic bow. The day after will be an event much awaited by those who live in or visit the Haut Plateau, our concert especially for families and children. This year, “Mozart and the Bird” will help our youngsters explore the enchanted world of Wolfgang Amadeus. A “show” around a tale written by the talented Christine Savoy.
And for the rest of the season in February and March, four concerts which have also become traditional! The famous Belgo-Russian violinist, Yossif Ivanov, former Gold Medal winner of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel competition, will lead the already skilled young musicians of this famous Belgian institution. We are happy to welcome for the first time the baroque quartet of Maurice Steger, the master of the recorder, who will take us into his “Folia de Napoli”, as well as the oustanding violinist, Ilya Gringolts, in a new and innovative programme. We’ll also be happy to reconnect with those remarkable musicians, pianist Beatrice Berrut and cellist Jing Zhao, in a duet that promises to be sparkling.
So here are six good reasons to join us to celebrate, musically, a new year that I hope will be full of good things for you all.
Musically yours
Michaël Guttman