Organ & Music Festival Cyprus

St. Francis in Music & Images

Organ Improvisations by Ferruccio Bartoletti (Italy) accompanying clips from a silent movie of 1918 on the life of St. Francis.

Clips from the silent movie: Brother Sun (1918)

In the frame of the Celebrations for the 800th anniversary of the visit of Saint Francis of Assisi to Cyprus and the Middle East.

This is the fifth year that the Terra Sancta Organ Festival organizes concerts in Cyprus. This year’s concerts are part of a special event: the 800th anniversary of the visit of St. Francis to Cyprus and the Middle East, which took place in 1219. For this reason, our concert will also be a little special: an Italian silent film from 1918 illustrating the life of St. Francis will be screened while the music will provide a live commentary to the various episode, as it was done at the time of the silent films.

This beautiful opportunity is possible thanks to the skills of the Italian organist Ferruccio Bartoletti, who specializes in this type of improvisation. A classical musician, Bartoletti was among the first in Italy to create interactive organ improvisational works that combine narration, poetry, and image. For many years, in addition to the normal concert activity as a soloist at the organ, he has dedicated himself to the sound reconstruction of several cinematographic films by Italian and foreign authors, proposing the traditional figure of the early twentieth-century improvising instrumentalist. Bartoletti is also the titular organist of the Cathedral of Massa, which is in Tuscany.

The Italian organist Ferruccio Bartoletti performs in the most important cathedrals, churches and concert rooms all over Europe where he has given over 800 recitals. Alongside his normal concert performances as an organist, he has dedicated himself to the reconstruction of soundtracks for 1920s cinema films by Italian and foreign filmmakers, re-proposing the traditional early 20th-century figure of the improvising accompanist.

Wednesday, 8th May 2019 | Larnaca
8:30 pm: St. Mary of Graces Catholic Church | Admission Free

Friday, 10th May 2019 | Nicosia
8:30 pm | Holy Cross Catholic Church | Admission Free

Saturday, 11th May 2019 | Limassol
8:30 pm: Saint Catherine’s Catholic Church | Admission Free

Sunday, 12th May 2019 | Pafos
3:30 pm: Agia Kyriaki Chrisopolitissa (The Church at St. Paul’s pillar) | Admission Free