Breadcrumb:
The Festival
The Vision
LacMus is an international classical music festival held annually on Lake Como, one of the most fascinating places in Italy, established in 2017 with the aim of offering audiences an international series of classical music concerts.
Founded by conductor Paolo Bressan and pianist Louis Lortie , the event combines together the magic of music with the uniqueness of the landscapes on Lake Como and its world unique venues, thus promoting Italian excellence in its most complete dimension.
Since 2022, LacMus Christmas has been added, a festival with a winter atmosphere that is highlighted in fascinating places rich in history, such as churches and private villas overlooking Lake Como, Lake Lugano or embraced by the green countryside of Brianza.
The Locations
LacMus Festival creates a sensory experience where music and beauty blend together, creating an atmosphere that transcends simple listening to become an indelible memory, suspended between sky and water, between history and present.
Among the locations of the Festival: the Sanctuary of the Beata Vergine del Soccorso in Ossuccio, a UNESCO World Heritage site, Villa Carlotta, Villa del Balbianello – one of the most visited FAI properties in Italy, the “Belle Époque” gardens of the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, the Greenway of Lake Como, the Teresio Olivelli Park, the Abbey of San Benedetto in Val Perlana, the precious Isola Comacina (where LacMus Festival has organized a concert for symphony orchestra and piano for the first time in history), the Museo della Barca Lariana, Villa Lario, Villa Melzi d’Eril in Bellagio and Castello Durini in Alzate Brianza.
The Music
From 2017 to 2024, the Festival has hosted internationally renowned artists, including: Ton Koopman, one of the greatest interpreters of Bach; Emmanuel Pahud, First Flute of the Berliner Philharmoniker; the “princes of wind instruments” Les Vents Français. And then Richard Galliano, Christiane Karg, Sophie Koch, Renè Barbera, Maurizio Baglini, the Adorno Quartet, Andrew von Oeyen, the Milan Symphony Orchestra, Roman Burdenko, Augustin Dumay, Miguel da Silva, Giuliano Carmignola, Philippe Quint, Pavel Berman, Jan Vogler, Anna Pirozzi, Giuseppe Gibboni, Jonathan Tetelman, Ambrogio Maestri, the First Flute of the Teatro La Scala Andrea Manco, the Modigliani Quartet and, of course, Maestros Louis Lortie and Paolo Bressan.
From 2017 to 2021, the students of the Belgian academy Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, played
alongside these artists, creating real musical meetings between young talents and great teachers.
From 2025, we are collaborating with Sinfonia Smith Square, an ambitious London-based orchestra that has helped hundreds of young musicians elevate their careers to new artistic heights.
Beyond Music: Culture and Innovation
For each edition, LacMus Festival plans cultural activities in a broad sense, such as exhibitions that highlight the historical and artistic connections with the Lake area.
- 2019 “This lake, the greenery, the flowers, is the smile of angels. The Musical Enchantment of Lake Como”, at the Lake Como Landscape Museum, Tremezzo. Exhibition dedicated to the great authors and artists who lived and stayed on Lake Como, including Rossini, Verdi, Schnabel, Bellini, Ricordi.
- 2021 “Artur Schnabel and his family. Stories of musicians in Tremezzina, Lake Como”, at the Museo del Paesaggio del Lago di Como, Tremezzo. The first international exhibition project that recounted the human and artistic experience of a family of musicians who, starting with Artur Schnabel, have intertwined personal stories and stories linked to the territory of Tremezzina and the locations of the Festival.
The Festival has always supported the diffusion of culture and innovation, with some ideas developed during the past editions:
- Listening to some concerts in wi-fi experience mode, to be able to listen to the music and visit the locations at the same time.
- Sunrise concerts, including breakfast and optional yoga session.
- LacMus Educational, concerts with an educational purpose for the younger generations.
- “Vive les amateurs!”, a unique concert that brings together top-level amateur musicians from all over the world, for whom music is not their main occupation but whose passion remains alive and pulsating.
The Artistic Directors
Louis Lortie
French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie is renowned worldwide for his interpretative originality, the fruit of a wide repertoire. The Times found in him a “combination of spontaneity and maturity that only great pianists have”.
In his artistic career Louis Lortie has appeared in all the most prestigious halls, including the Wigmore Hall in London, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Carnegie Hall and the Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He is known throughout the world for his interpretations of Chopin Etudes.
He has collaborated with famous conductors including Riccardo Chailly, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Seiji Ozawa, Charles Dutoit, Neeme Järvi, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Hannu Lintu. He has also taken part in numerous chamber music projects with Augustin Dumay and forms a close-knit duo with the Canadian pianist Hélène Mercier. Recent engagements have included performances with the Bournemouth, Boston, Montreal and Vienna Symphony Orchestras, the Quebec Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre National de France. Louis Lortie has made over thirty recordings for the Chandos label. He made his debut with the Montreal Symphony at the age of thirteen and, three years later, his first performance with the Toronto Symphony led to a historic tour of China and Japan. In 1984 he won First Prize in the Busoni Competition. From October 2016 until 2021, Louis Lortie was Master in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Brussels
Paolo Bressan
An internationally acclaimed conductor, Paolo Bressan was appointed “Head of Music and Chorus Director” of the Dallas Opera, in Texas, USA, so-called “La Scala West,” and is co-founder and general and artistic director of LacMus International Festival of Classical Music on Lake Como.
A graduate in conducting and piano from the Conservatorio “Giuseppe Verdi” in Milan, where he also studied composition with M° Bruno Zanolini and choral conducting with M° Franco Monego, he perfected his studies in piano with M° Louis Lortie.
He obtained a master’s degree in conducting and vocal coaching at the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” in Weimar, Germany. He has been assistant conductor to Christian Thielemann, Valery Gergiev and Daniele Gatti.
He began his career at the “Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater in Schwerin,” a historic theater in northern Germany. Here he worked as conductor, pianist and vocal coach, being able to develop a repertoire of more than 40 opera titles, numerous symphonic and symphonic-choral pieces.
He has conducted at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the “Smetana Hall” in Prague, the “Théâtre des Champs-Élysées” in Paris, the Spanish National Auditorium in Madrid, the National Auditorium in Mexico City, the Dallas Opera, the “Badisches Staatstheater” in Karlsruhe, the Flensburg Theater and the Croatian National Theater in Rijeka, among others.