A piano marathon by İdil Biret

ISTANBUL

The 44th Istanbul Music Festival, which kicked off on June 1 under the organization of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), will present music lovers with a piano marathon by the great virtuoso İdil Biret, who has left her mark on classical music as an interpreter since the second half of the 20th century and is celebrating her 75th birthday this year.

After performing her first concert at Boğaziçi University’s Albert Long Hall on June 2, Biret will take the stage at the Süreyya Opera House on June 5 and the Hagia Eirene Museum on June 8, performing a marathon featuring a wide repertoire, ranging from the baroque period to 20th century music.

Weekend Classics, which has received great interest in the past two editions, will continue throughout the festival with free of charge open-air concerts on weekends. 

Filling the festival’s weekend mornings with music, the first of the concert series will be held on June 5 at the Garden of Austrian Culture Forum with the Viennese string ensemble, the Auner Quartet. Seeking possibilities of new interpretations and to convey music as a spontaneous and original experience, the quartet will perform Mozart’s String Quartet No. 17, dedicated to Haydn, who is considered the creator of the modern quartet form, and Schubert’s String Quartet No.13, “Rosamunde,” one of his rare extant pieces for the theatre, described as one of the most beautiful musical expressions of mood and feeling.