It is with particular excitement that the Forum Novum Ensemble brings its music to Iseo, to mark the feast of Saint Vigilius and the annual celebrations that bring its history and traditions to life.

The concert is conceived as a tribute to the town and its community, through a musical journey that leads from 18th-century Venice to the great 19th-century opera, weaving together music, history and memory.

The common thread will be a figure who holds a special link between Venice and Iseo: Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, whose arrival on the lake in 1497 is still commemorated today through the traditional historical re-enactment.

The programme will open with Baldassarre Galuppi’s ‘Dixit Dominus’ and Antonio Vivaldi’s famous ‘Gloria’, two masterpieces composed in 18th-century Venice, united by a style rich in contrasts, energy and intense expressiveness. The two works capture the full vitality of the great Venetian musical tradition, in a dialogue between solemnity, theatricality and refined sensitivity.

To round off the programme, as a tribute to Iseo, the feast of Saint Vigilius and the historical re-enactment of the Queen of Cyprus’s arrival, the Forum Novum Ensemble will perform two choruses from Gaetano Donizetti’s *Caterina Cornaro*, an opera that celebrates the figure of the Venetian queen and represents one of the significant links between her historical story and the tradition of Italian opera.

This concert is therefore intended to be not just a musical event, but a journey through eras, places and moods, in the spirit of a history that lives on through music.