"Cavan Musicians Perform at the Famous “Dolomites Music Festival in Italy”
Twenty three musicians from Cavan and Meath travelled to Italy with their Musical Director John Chilton to perform a number of concerts at the famous Dolomites Music Festival in Italy. The musicians, from Virginia, Mullagh, Kingscourt and Meath are part of the Castletown Accordion Orchestra and performed four concerts during the festival. Located in North Eastern Italy, the Dolomites are arguably the most spectacular range of mountains in Europe and the Dolomites Music Festival, now it is 17th year, is a hugely popular annual event in the area attracting local and foreign visitors.
John Chilton from Lisduff, Virginia is Musical Director with the Castletown Accordion Orchestra; he said “We were very privileged to be invited to perform at the Dolomites Music Festival in Italy. Each year the Festival has four performers at each concert. Annually the line-up includes organiser Ernesto Bellus and his orchestra the ‘G. Rossini Orchestra’ and then they invite three other prestigious artists from around the world. This year they asked our Castletown Accordion Orchestra, a soloist from the Ukraine (Eugenia Cerkasova) and an ensemble (Dus Savron-Jurincic - accordion & guitar) from Slovenia”.
The concerts took place in four towns in the Dolomites area: Feltre, Domegge di Cadore, Caprile di Alleghe and San Vito Di Cadore. Each venue seated 800/900 people and each evening was a sell out with people being turned away at the door. The Castletown Accordion Orchestra performed some popular pieces as well as some traditional Italian and Irish pieces. Each night they received standing ovations with the crowd shouting 'Bravi'. The first concert of the festival in which the Cavan musicians performed was recorded for Italian Television.
Castletown Accordion Orchestra have won a number of prestigious competitions including the European Championship and have been highly placed in the World Championships over the past number of years where they will again compete in 2013 in Austria.