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Tuscany – The Orchestra Giovanile Italiana

The Orchestra Giovanile Italiana (founded by Riccardo Muti in 1984 and direct by Nicola Paszkowski) performed last month at Florence’s Teatro Comunale as part of the Maggio Musicale Festival, with guest conductor Gianandrea Noseda.
The musicians (all between 18 and 27) received hearty bis! and bravi! For their performances of Smetana’s Hakon Jarl,, Stravinsky’s Le Baiser de la Fée and Dvorak’s Symphony N. 8 in G major op. 88
The Orchestra Giovanile consists mainly of Italian performers, although there are eight foreigners ( from Poland, Ecuador, Japan, Romania, Macedonia, Mexico and Russia).
The musicians know that in Italy they must accept ludicrously low pay, but even so they aspire to this joyously, expecting to supplement their earnings with teaching and solo performances, but above all to pursue a career they love.
Three of the musicians ( all 25 years old) discussed their ambitions over coffee before the concert.
Percussionist Dario Varuni, a Florentine of Neapolitan extraction, although attracted to the progressive cosmopolitan capital Berlin, said he could imagine no better life than performing in his adepte city. Already he has a busy career that includes teaching and performing in the past as far away as Paris, Heidelberg, and Milan.
Cellist Anna Stasevich, on the other hand, who comes from Caluga (200 km from Moscow), said she would be thrilled toh ave a permanent position with any major Italian orchestra.
Stasevich studied at the Conservatory of Caluga and completed her studies at the Moscow State Music Academy with Alla Vassilieva. What she likes about being in the OGI is being able to devote all her time to practing and performing Harpist Anna-Livia Walker (from Lucca), who has recently played for Live Music Now in the UK and at the Lisbon Opera House, says she would be very happy to continue working both in orchestras and as a soloist.
Sureley the world needs more of this kind of music, but sadly Noseda, conductor of Torino’s Teatro Regio, told the audience that the Giovanile (OGI), widely recognized as one of Europe’s most distinguished youth orchestras, has had its funds cut in half this year. Noseda, who rehearsed with the musicians in the period leading up to the concert without accepting any payment, said that “ our future dreams” represented by these young artists, are under threat.

Tuscany and women

Women who follow their instict, and strive to fulfil their dreams, who find space and time and come to Tuscany.
Tuscany Welcomes Women is designed to meet the destre of these free, indipendent and romantic women who love travelling and meeting other people, pampering themselves and living themselves a holiday, a moment of pleasure in search of emotion and knowledge.
Tuscany Welcomes Women welcomes you to a region that has come up with this possibility, making made to measure offers for women travelling alone, with children or female fiends.
The women who come here will find the care and attention of selected structures with different programmes and proposing different ideas, with special offers and discounts for beauty treatments, spa treatments and cultural events.
Think of the holiday that awaits you, of what you will experience, get an advance taste of your Tuscan experience by plucking from your imagination a name, a location, a trip, that inspires you and that has drawn your attention. Then forget all the rest.
You can count on the female entrepreneurs who care part of Tuscany Welcomes Women to organise a holiday rich in emotions.
We knew that with their help we would be alble to offer a lot: a rich and open region, welcoming and generous with women who want to communicate and rediscover the things that count.
Besides, with their sensitivity what better approach could there be to the region’s treasures than a woman’s.
You will be able to come in contact with different worlds, from the splendour of the Medici cities to the infinite number of small villages, ridde and enveloped in the charm of a never ending story.
A closely woven fabric, dense in emotions in which art leale room for the countryside and the flavours of the countryside, and the flavours of the cuisine are the cue for getting to know the territory, cultures and traditions.
In the Tuscany Welcomes Women project the rules are changed, another language reigns, the language of relaxation, rest, but also of discovery research, pleasure, all designed to fit in with your desires.

The project is arranged into several themes:
. knoledge and learning
. active holidays
. society life
. well being spiritualità and meditation
. ecology and country life

These themes are basic concepts that can be furtherexplored tank to numerous possible activities designed especially for women.
Let yourselves be guided and you will discover a unique Tuscany where harony and equilibrium reign, the colours conjure up desires and views trigger off sweet sensations.
Against this background you can experience your holiday increasingly in the driving seat, and lessa s onlookers.
Women travelling with children can find ad hoc structures and staff, with ideas designed for children. “pearshaps also in the company of female friends” you can celebrate an event, create a personalized stay, devote your time to shopping and society life, to cultural life and your healt with walking, cycling and horse riding.
The tourist packages of various kinds, from days devoted to relaxation in a spa to visiting a wine cellar with wine tasting, from a course in local cuisine to a walk in the woods or in the regional parks, a dinner in a typical restaurant to taste the flavour of tradition and play at the theatre or in a town square following the “events calendar” for the period and the city you are visiting.
In addition, there are holidays designed for those who want to learn something new: including activities starting in the morning, at a leisurely time, for you to relax and forget the frenetich rhythms of every day routine, until the evening, when you late in the many night spots that offer entertainment of all types together with typical dishes.
Tuscany Welcomes Women provides a welcoming stay in a hotels, period residences, solida farms and bed & breakfast that are taking part in the iniziative. If you want to taste dishes from the traditional cuisine you can have lunch or dinner in the restaurants participating to the project Vetrina Toscana a Tavola.

Tuscany – Forte dei Marmi

Forte dei Marmi is a sea town and comune in the province of Lucca, in northern Tuscany (Italy).
It is the birthplace of Paola Ruffo di Calabria, Queen of the Belgians.
The census of 2001 states that Forte dei Marmi has 8,444 inhabitants, though population nearly triples during the summer, because of the hundreds of tourist who mainly come from Florence, Milan, Germany, and Russia.
Tourism is the principal activity of Forte dei Marmi’s citizens.
In Italian Forte dei Marmi means Fort of the Marbles. In fact, the town takes its name from the fortress that rises in the middle of the main square, built under Grand Duke Peter Leopold, who was to become Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1788.
The fortress was built to defend the coast from outer attacks, but in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century it became the place where the marble quarried from the Alpi Apuane (they are the same mountains of the famous marble of Carrara) was stocked before being sent to the pier for shipping.

Tuscany – Wine and Oil Tour

A wine tour is a discovering experience that starts from the vineyard and ends into a glass.

Tuscany is rich in high quality wine areas, each one with its own story, more or less famous, but always enchanting.  You do not have but to slow down and begin your journey along Wine and Beauty.

The wineries we propose for our wine tours have been chosen according to the quality of their wines and to the friendly and welcoming nature of their owners and managers, mirroring the absolute passion for their work.

This selection is still in progress because our work is to research always the best! This is what we love more, discovering and falling in love with our land again everyday, hoping to transmit this passion to you.

Our wine tours usually start in the morning from the place you require, according to the distance from the wine area you want to visit. You must know that most wineries are on hilltop and country roads to reach them are not always so smooth, so it takes some time to go from a geographic area to another one and we need to plan carefully a tour as to let you enjoy it.

Visits to wineries usually start with a panoramic view of the vineyards, passing by the vat room, where the process of de-stemming the grapes and vinification is passionately explained by an expert wine guide.

Then, you visit the cellars, where wine ages in the oak barrels, and, some times, the bottling rooms, where the bottled wine reaches full refinement.Each visit ends with a wine tasting, often coupled with oil tasting (because many farms produces both wine and oil) and then, if you want, you can buy some bottle of wine and oil.

According to the schedule of a tour, you can have also lunch in a winery, a good chance to understand how coupling wine and food! Anyway, each tour is carefully planned for you and according to your requests and needs and we will always be happy to realize your ideas!

Article offered from Tuscany Relais.it a new charming way to promote Tuscany

Tuscany – Monteriggioni tour

The nucleus of Monteriggioni is a small strengthened city.
The diameter of the castle is of 172 meters, surrounded by a thick walls of elliptic form of the thickness of well 2 meters, alternated by 15 towers and two doors, that it encircles a hill called mount Ala. The towers, raise today him above the walls for 6,5 meters, with a thickness of 4×6 meters, and they are only 11 visible of it: the others four have been reduced to the level of the walls. Above the surrounded walls a passage that crossed the whole perimeter raced. In 2005 some parts of the passage are been reconstructed, from which is possible to enjoy of an unique and suggestive sight.