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LacMus Festival

The Festival

LacMus is an international classical music festival held every summer on Lake Como, one of the most fascinating places in Italy.
Founded by pianist Louis Lortie and conductor Paolo Bressan, the festival combines together the magic of music with the uniqueness of the venues and landscapes on Lake Como.


The Venues

The festival is held in venues with a unique historical, architectural and scenic value, providing the audience a way to live an immersive musical experience surrounded by nature, architecture, art and history.

Here are some of them: Villa Carlotta, Villa del Balbianello (FAI heritage – the National Trust of Italy), the Sanctuary of the Beata Vergine del Soccorso on Sacro Monte di Ossuccio (inscribed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites), the historical palace Grand Hotel Tremezzo with its “Belle Époque” gardens, the Lake Como Greenway, Isola Comacina and Villa Melzi d’Eril in Bellagio.


The Music

The festival features some of the most internationally recognized music artists, together with some of the most promising young students of prestigious music academies. The result is the creation of new synergies between young talents and famous artists.

Among the artists hosted so far: Ton Koopman, Emmanuel Pahud, Les Vents Français, Richard Galliano, Christiane Karg, Sophie Koch, Renè Barbera, Maurizio Baglini, Adorno Quartet, Andrew von Oeyen, Symphonic Orchestra Giuseppe Verdi of Milan, Roman Burdenko, Augustin Dumay, Miguel da Silva, Giuliano Carmignola, Philippe Quint, Pavel Berman and, of course, Louis Lortie and Paolo Bressan.


Beyond Music: Culture and Innovation

LacMus Festival is not just about music: creating and spreading “culture” in a wide sense is a key point of its mission.

In history, Lake Como was often chosen as a destination for traveling or staying by renowned artists and writers. Therefore the festival’s program often includes exhibitions underlying the evident links between history, art, music and this territory, becoming a source of great research value.

The festival is also supporting cultural development and innovation.
Actually, the festival’s programs are featuring:
» the wi-fi headphones experience: a way to listen to music while exploring and walking through the venues;
» the sunrise concerts: breathtaking experiences with breakfast and yoga sessions included;
» LacMus Educational: concerts with music education purposes.


Behind the scenes

LacMus Festival is organized by Ars Aeterna cultural and musical association.

International partnerships

In order to support the festival’s activities and to promote them in the US, the association “American Friends of LacMus Festival” was founded in 2019.

International artistic partnerships

Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel (from 2017 to 2021), one of the most prestigious music
academies in the world.


The artistic directors

Louis Lortie

The highly-esteemed French Canadian pianist Louis Lortie has extended his interpretative voice across a broad range of repertoire rather than choosing to specialize in one particular style. The London Times has identified the artist’s “combination of total spontaneity and meditated ripeness that only great pianists have”.
Recent concerts include appearances with the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Sydney Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, amongst others. Mr. Lortie has been named Artist in Residence of the Shanghai Symphony for the 2017-2018 season, which will include a tour of performances in Tibet.
He has made more than 45 recordings for the Chandos label, covering repertoire from Mozart to Stravinsky, including a set of the complete Beethoven sonatas and the complete Liszt “Annees de Pelerinage”, which was named one of the ten best recordings of 2012 by the New Yorker Magazine.
As of October 2016 Louis Lortie became the new Master in Residence of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel of Belgium. Mr. Lortie studied in Montreal with Yvonne Hubert, in Vienna with Beethoven specialist Dieter Weber, and subsequently with Leon Fleisher. He was named Officer of the Order of Canada in 1992, and received the Order of Quebec. He has lived in Berlin since 1997 and also has homes in Canada and Italy.

Paolo Bressan

“The young Italian conductor, former assistant of Daniele Gatti and Christian Thielemann, proved to be an ecstatic and talented conductor who propelled the responsive orchestra through a churning sea of emotions, especially with the intermezzo from Puccini’s Manon Lescaut” (Der Standard, Wien).
Paolo Bressan made a higly acclaimed debut at the Vienna Konzerthaus in a concert with Joseph Calleja and the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra. He conducted at the Théatre-des-Champs-Elysée in Paris and at the Smetana Hall in Prague with the PKF Prague Philharmonia and tenor Bryan Hymel. During the 2015-16 season he made his US debut at the Dallas Opera and in October 2016 at the national auditorium in Mexico City. Warner Music conferred him the artistic supervision of Diana Damrau’s recording “Works of G. Meyerbeer” and Angela Gheorgiu’s “Verismo”. Paolo Bressan started his career at the Mecklenburgisches State Opera in Schwerin, Germany where he also was musical and artistic director of the city’s young symphony orchestra and studied at the conservatory “Giuseppe Verdi” in Milan, Italy and at the university of music “Franz Liszt” in Weimar.