2011 Summer holidays in Cortona, enjoying the Tuscan Sun Festival

Give yourself a treat for your summer holidays. You might be interested in this wonderful villa for rent in Cortona, Arezzo,  a  renovated 18th century  farmhouse with a great view on the surrounding landscape . Just at 15 minutes’ drive from the town,  it is one of the best  accomodations  in Cortona offered by www.tuscanyholidayrent.com . The right place  to be in,  either to enjoy the peace of the gourgeous  landscape or to be able to plunge into   the 9th edition Tuscan  Sun Festival,  from July the30th to August the 7^th 2011. The small medieval town, made famous  by Frances Mayes ‘ book “Under The Tuscan Sun”,  presents  world class concerts, international stars’ performances,  wine and culinary events,  art exhibitions and wellness- fitness sessions.

On Monday,  August the 1^st, the Festival  features,  inside the Teatro Signorelli, in the heart of Cortona, the opening concert of  the legendary pianist Martha Argerich. The performance focuses on  Argentinian  tango and  more exactly on its variations by composers such as Ginastera, Piazzolla and Bacalov. She will be accompanied by Argentinian friends such as  Luis Bacalov himself, Rafael Gintoli, Nestor Marconi and Eduardo Hubert.

An opportunity not to be missed.

On August the 4^th Hollywood superstars Sharon Stone and Jeremy Irons are going to be the interpreters of the performance Nocturne: Seduction, Smoke and Music – The love story of Chopin and George Sand. about the relationship  between Chopin and Sand over a decade, from the very beginning  to the writer’s final motherly role of Chopin. The  reading of their love letters is intermingled by dance and music, in fact Nina Kotova,  renown cellist and co-founder of Tuscan Sun Festival, will join the performance.

Other concerts with distinguished artists follow. The violinist Pinchas  Zuckerman,  the cellist Amanda Forsyth and Italian flutist Andrea Griminelli,  conducted by  Montanaro will play on Tuesday  the 2^nd of August Mozart and Tchaikovski. It is worthwhile remembering  the violinist Michael Guttman  presenting Schubert and the  pianist Leif Ove Andsnes playing Beethoven . On the closing night the classical and baroque arias by the soprano Danielle de Niese .
But the festival is not only music.

The region’s deeply rooted tradition of wine,  stepping back into  Etruscan times, will be highlighted  by special celebrations. On the opening night, July  Saturday 30^th 2011,  James Suckling,  former Senior Editor and European Bureau Chief of the Wine Spectator has planned ,together with the local top winemakers, tastings,  lectures  and a final gorgeous dinner at the Relais Il Falconiere, Cortona, a Michelin- starred restaurant whose backdrop  takes the visitor back to the glorious landscapes of the best Renaissance painters. Let’s  remember other wine tasting tours  by  the Wine Consortium of Cortona but above all the  glamorous gala dinners hosted both in the Ferragamo family estate, Il Borro,  Cortona and in the Tenimenti d’Alessandro estate in the nearby Manzano .

As to visual arts section  this year Cortona  welcomes the photographer  Fabrizio Ferri’s Hidden Music, which proposes a suggestive synthesis between photography and classical ballet,  that is as -he says – the music hidden inside the silence of photography. These images represent  the feeling and soul of dance in some of the most significant  classical ballets.  On Monday, the 1^st of August Daniel Buren’s installation Walk on Water: Work in Situ will be unveiled  at Borgo Syrah-Tenimenti D’Alessandro.  This year Cortona is  celebrating  the  internationally acclaimed and most relevant  contemporary artist born in Boulogne-Billancourt, whose name conjures up Les Deux Plateaux , more commonly known as the “Buren’s Columns” in  Palais Royal, Paris, where the artist, controversially,  integrates  contemporary art inside historical buildings.

Cortona has not forgotten wellness thanks to the dance lessons of Anne-Marie Morison, the Tai Chi sessions of Lucia Dalbon and Yoga and Pilates Class of Trudie Styler, a recurrently active  supporter, with her husband the rock star Sting, of Tuscan Sun Festival and of Tuscan lifestyle.

An experience not easily  to be forgotten.

It is worthwhile a journey.