The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the "Big Six" International film festivals worldwide, which include the Big Three European Film Festivals, alongside the Toronto Film Festival in Canada the Sundance Film Festival in the United States and the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia. The Festivals are internationally acclaimed for giving creators the artistic freedom to express themselves through film. In 1951, FIAPF formally accredited the festival.
The Venice Biennale is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of its kind. The main exhibition held in Castello, in the halls of the Arsenale and Biennale Gardens, alternates between art and architecture. The other events hosted by the Foundation—spanning theatre, music, and dance—are held annually in various parts of Venice, whereas the Venice Film Festival takes place at the Lido.
The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual arts festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, spread over the final three weeks in August. Notable figures from the international world of music and the performing arts are invited to join the festival. Visual art exhibitions, talks and workshops are also hosted.
Andrei Sergeyevich KonchalovskyOZO is a Russian filmmaker. He has worked in Soviet, Hollywood, and contemporary Russian cinema. He is a laureate of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", a National Order of the Legion of Honour, an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters, a Cavalier of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and a People's Artist of the RSFSR. He is the son of writer Sergey Mikhalkov, and the brother of filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov.
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an annual opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.
Michael Chance CBE is an English countertenor and the founder and Artistic Director of The Grange Festival.
The Festival della Valle d'Itria is a summer opera festival held in the south eastern Italian town of Martina Franca in the Apulia region. The Festival was founded in 1975 and performances are given in July and August each summer on a specially constructed stage in the outdoor courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale.
Carl Anton Charles Ebert, was an actor, stage director and arts administrator.
Andrea Molino is an Italian composer and conductor. He has first attracted international attention through a video/music theatre work, Those Who Speak In A Faint Voice, a project about capital punishment, and later through the multimedia music theatre projects Credo, and Winners.
Plácido Domingo's Operalia, The World Opera Competition is an annual international competition for opera singers. Founded in 1993 by Plácido Domingo, the competition's varied prizes have been given to known artists such as Joseph Calleja, Rolando Villazón, José Cura, Joyce DiDonato, Elizabeth Futral, Nina Stemme, Erwin Schrott, Sonya Yoncheva and Lise Davidsen.
Elio Battaglia, is an Italian baritone, singing teacher, and author and lecturer in music. He was the founder and director of the course entitled, Il Lied Tedesco, which ran in Acquasparta, Italy, from 1973 to 2005, and then in Turin from 2007 to 2008.
Nomeda Kazlaus is one of the most outstanding Lithuanian operatic sopranos of the contemporary generation of singers, an international opera diva who has appeared in leading roles in many European opera houses including the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the Teatro Malibran in Venice etc. Nomeda Kazlaus is also TV host, producer, vocal professor, jury chair and member of many international competitions, laureate of four international singing competitions, winner of the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture Young Artist 2007 award.
John Fisher is a Scottish opera director, conductor, opera manager, vocal coach, and record producer. The former Artistic Administrator of La Scala in Milan, he served as the Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the Welsh National Opera (WNO) from 2006 until 2011. He has worked as a record producer of opera recordings for both Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Records, and collaborated with opera director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle on several opera films for Unitel Films.
The Innsbruck Festival of Early Music is a festival of historically informed performances of music from the late Renaissance, Baroque and early Classical periods which takes place annually in Innsbruck, Austria. It was founded in 1976.
Andrzej Dobber is a Polish baritone, honored with the title of Kammersänger by the Senate of the City of Hamburg and awarded the silver medal for Merit to Culture - Gloria Artis by the Polish Minister of Culture.
Hans-Joachim Frey is a German cultural manager. From 1997 to 2007, he was Artistic Director of Operations and Director of Opera at the Semperoper in Dresden from 2007 to 2010 and general director at the Theater Bremen. In January 2013 he was responsible in the European Capital of Culture in Linz as a board director and artistic director of Liva, where he was also on the Bruckner House, the International Bruckner Festival and the clouds of sound.
Eytan Pessen is a pianist and voice teacher, currently at the Opera houses of Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Vienna (Volksoper), Zürich and international festivals. He was former opera director of the Semperoper in Dresden, artistic advisor to Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and former casting director of the Staatstheater Stuttgart.
Damiano Michieletto is an Italian stage director especially known for opera. He has staged productions at leading opera houses and festivals worldwide. His awards include the 2015 Laurence Olivier Award for the production of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci at the Royal Opera House in London.
Anthony Roth Costanzo is an American countertenor, actor, and producer who has led performances at opera companies around the world. Beginning his career in musical theatre at the age of 11, he has since been featured at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, English National Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and Glyndebourne Opera Festival, as well as in concert with the New York Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra. In 2012, he won first place at Plácido Domingo's international opera competition Operalia and, in 2009, was a Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. As an actor, he has performed in several films, including the Merchant Ivory film A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, for which he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. As a producer and curator, he has created shows for National Sawdust, Opera Philadelphia, the Philharmonia Baroque, Princeton University, WQXR, The State Theater in Salzburg, MasterVoices, and Kabuki-za Tokyo. Costanzo is a graduate of Princeton University, where he has returned to teach, and he received his master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music.
Antonello Manacorda is an Italian violinist and conductor, especially of opera, who has worked internationally. He has been the chief conductor of the Kammerakademie Potsdam and of Het Gelders Orkest.
