Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana | |
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Orchestra | |
Short name | OSI |
Former name |
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Founded | 1933 |
Location | Lugano, Switzerland |
Principal conductor | Markus Poschner |
Website | Official website |
The Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana (OSI; literal translation, Orchestra of Italian Switzerland) is a Swiss orchestra based in Lugano. The orchestra's primary concert venue is the Auditorio RSI. The OSI also gives a concert series at the Sala Teatro.
The precursor ensemble of the OSI, consisting of approximately 30 musicians, was founded in 1933 under the auspices of the Italian Swiss Radio. In 1935, the orchestra acquired the name Orchestra della Radio Svizzera Italiana, [1] giving its first concert on 2 January 1935. Later, with the advent of television, the orchestra's name evolved to Orchestra della Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana (Radio Television Orchestra of Italian Switzerland). The orchestra took on its current name in 1991.
For the orchestra, Richard Strauss composed his Duet-Concertino in F major, TrV 293 (o.op.AV 147). Other composers who directed their compositions with the OSI included Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Frank Martin, Paul Hindemith, Luciano Berio, Darius Milhaud, Hans Werner Henze and Igor Stravinsky. The orchestra has participated in the Settimane Musicali in Ascona (since 1946), the Concerti of Lugano (from 1953 to 1976) and the Primavera Concertistica of Lugano (since 1982).
Leopoldo Casella was the first principal conductor of the orchestra, beginning his affiliation with the ensemble back to the precursor ensemble in 1933. Casella continued to work with the orchestra until 1968. Alain Lombard, principal conductor from 1999 to 2005, subsequently held the title of honorary conductor of the orchestra. Principal guest conductors have included Serge Baudo (1997-2000) and Mikhail Pletnev (2008–2010 [2] ). Vladimir Ashkenazy held the title of direttore ospite principale of the orchestra from 2013 until his retirement in 2020.
The orchestra's current principal conductor is Markus Poschner, since the 2015-2016 season. [3]
The Eurovision Song Contest 1956 was the first edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest, organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Radio svizzera italiana (RSI) on behalf of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. The contest, originally titled the Gran Premio Eurovisione 1956 della Canzone Europea, was held on 24 May 1956 at the Teatro Kursaal in Lugano, Switzerland, and hosted by Swiss television presenter Lohengrin Filipello, which remains the only time that the contest has been hosted by a solo male presenter.
The Lombard language belongs to the Gallo-Italic group within the Romance languages and is characterized by a Celtic linguistic substratum and a Lombardic linguistic superstratum and is a cluster of homogeneous dialects that are spoken by millions of speakers in Northern Italy and southern Switzerland, including most of Lombardy and some areas of the neighbouring regions, notably the far eastern side of Piedmont and the extreme western side of Trentino, and in Switzerland in the cantons of Ticino and Graubünden. The language is also spoken in Santa Catarina in Brazil by Lombard immigrants from the Province of Bergamo, in Italy.
The Ticinese dialect is the set of dialects, belonging to the Alpine and Western branch of the Lombard language, spoken in the northern part of the Canton of Ticino (Sopraceneri); the dialects of the region can generally vary from valley to valley, often even between single localities, while retaining the mutual intelligibility that is typical of the Lombard linguistic continuum.
The Università della Svizzera italiana, sometimes referred to as the University of Lugano in English-speaking contexts, is a public Swiss university established in 1995, with campuses in Lugano, Mendrisio and Bellinzona. USI is the only university in Switzerland where the official language is Italian, but many of its programs are in English.
Radiotelevisione svizzera di lingua italiana is a Swiss public broadcasting organisation, part of SRG SSR. RSI handles production and broadcasting of radio and television programs in Italian and Lombard for Switzerland. RSI's administrative headquarters are located in Via Canevascini in Lugano-Besso.
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