Bologna città della musica
The Musical bodies and associations of Bologna

• -> the musical bodies and associations of bologna
• -> competitions
• -> festivals
• -> cultural associations and centres
• -> seasons
• -> clubs with musical events
• -> schools and training centres

Bologna Festival Association
Bologna Festival was created in 1982 from an initiative of the “Palazzo della Cultura e dei Congressi” (Culture and Conference centre) that aroused the interest of a group of entrepreneurs and of culture lovers of Bologna, who wished to perpetuate the tradition that made Bologna an important historic point of reference and an international crossroads. The association organises classical, baroque and contemporary music festivals, besides promoting training courses in collaboration with the University of Bologna. The creation of monographic projects (Vienna, Romantic in Music, The Violin, Occasions and Circumstances, Continuity and Change, Music and Myth, Poetry in Music) on ancient music and present trends of contemporary music and research, is the main characteristic of this festival, which offers shows where music is accompanied by visual arts, theatre and dancing.
The extension of the repertoire and the growing importance achieved by the Bologna Festival, which has attracted the most famous names of the international concert scene (Pollini, Lupu, Perlman, Accardo, Muti, Sawallish, Sinopoli, Solti, Koopmann, Brüggen), has also brought the Local Administrations to add their contribution to the one of private sponsors.
The Association is the only body that welcomes international orchestra companies both for the classic-romantic repertoire and in field of ancient and baroque music, and presents another interesting example of public and private participation in the organisation of musical events.
The Association invests around 900.000 Euros every year for the promotion and the organisation of its extremely vast programme of classical, ancient and baroque music, of which more or less 50% comes from private sources, 8% from the City Council of Bologna, 19% from other public sources, while 23% from its own income.
Besides, the Association believes that its activities contribute to boosting the city cultural tourism industry (hotels, restaurants, public services etc.) for a total of around 150.000 € every year.

Angelica International Festival
Angelica is an international festival of contemporary music promoted by the Cultural Association Pierrot Lunaire, established in 1991 with the objective of promoting, supporting and spreading every form of creativity in the music field. The City Council of Bologna, considered the cultural relevance of the Angelica festival, supports and promotes its activities through an annual agreement, as sign of acknowledgement of the public interest it awakens. For the 2005 edition, the City Council allocated a contribution of € 60.000 – amounting to 30% of the Association’s budget – for the organisation of the festival and of the minor activities of the Association [Which is also financed by the State (5%), the Emilia-Romagna Region (40%) and the Province (5%)].
From its first edition in 1991 and during all the following 16 editions, the Angelica Festival has always tried to combine the pleasure of listening to music with an intense activity of research of new sounds.
Through a decontextualization of places and time and a varied programme, the Festival spurs the musical life of Bologna with new and unconventional messages. Angelica, which with the years has become a record label that has produced around twenty records, intends to represent every form of musical research that makes free use of the material offered by the various musical traditions.
In this context, space is given to concerts and listening days that include the presence of internationally renowned figures, meetings and debates concerning the problems of music, moments and occasions of interaction among musicians belonging to different musical and geographical areas. During the years the festival has consolidated itself and has become an extremely important appointment at national level, capable of spurring the local artistic scene, of creating solid relations with local, national and international musical institutions and especially of forming a new public in the field of contemporary music.

Distorsonie Festival
Since 1995, the Distorsonie Festival (DF) is an electronic music festival which represents an important appointment on the Italian scene dedicated to electronic music and culture. The initial idea and the guiding principle of DF was to give space to really contemporary and accurately selected productions and structures.
DF has always played a role of reference in the Italian electronic music context. The 2004 edition was presented as a celebrating and concentrated version, a synthesis of the experience ripened during the years; it was deliberately different from the "showcase" event of the previous editions, but nonetheless maintained the original characteristics of an annual meeting of artists and other professionals, an occasion for debate and reflection with seminars and workshops and moments of cultural and professional fruition and enrichment.
In 2004 the meetings were centred on the issue “electronic cultures”, with reference to the interdependence between electronic music and surrounding cultural environments.

Festival Internazionale di Santo Stefano (Saint Stephen’s International Festival)
Like many other events that take place in historic locations of the city of Bologna, the Saint Stephen’s International Festival, established in 1988 thanks to the efforts of the "Inedita" Association, combines the very high quality of its musical offers with the extraordinary character of the place where it takes place, one of the most precious and original locations of the artistic heritage of Bologna.
The extremely high level of its participants and the initial objective of the festival – to contribute with music to the restoration of the millenary monastic structure of Saint Stephen – give it a first place position in the context of the Italian music festivals. Now that the complex of Saint Stephen has finally regained its old splendour, the Festival remains an important appointment for the valorisation of this splendid architectonic structure. The cloister and the court, places of acoustic perfection where the performances take place, have been defined by the same artists "magical concert halls in the open air".
For sixteen years the Festival has been presenting itself as a unique event in its field: in fact, it catalyses the curiosity and the attention of an audience of thousands of people thanks to the originality of its formula, which combines the great names of chamber music with those of prose, to the rigour of the artistic choices, to the undeniable charm of its matches.