San Marino’s Autumn Music Festival 2026 (Rassegna Musicale d’Autunno) continues with its third scheduled event. On Sunday 25 October at 9pm, the Church of San Francesco will host the concert “Dal Barocco al Klezmer” (“From Baroque to Klezmer”), featuring violinists Raphael Negri and ShuYue Chen.
The programme traces a musical journey that begins in the Baroque repertoire and arrives at the Klezmer tradition, an expression of Eastern European Jewish culture, moving through compositions and styles from different eras.
At the heart of the concert is the violin itself, an instrument that over the centuries has found a place in both classical music and folk traditions. As the organisers explain, the programme “tells the story of the violin’s role and the many uses this instrument has had in an era when the more academic and descriptive style of the sonata existed alongside popular compositions such as tarantellas, follias, variations and reworkings of traditional melodies.”
From this interweaving emerges the connection to Klezmer music, characterised by its alternation of melancholic tones and festive rhythms, historically tied to dances, celebrations and ceremonies within Jewish tradition.
The concert will travel, in spirit, through France, Italy, Austria and Spain, arriving ultimately at the melodies of Eastern Europe, placing different musical languages in dialogue through the interplay of the two violins.
Raphael Negri, a graduate of the Luca Marenzio Conservatory in Brescia, spent over a decade as first violin with Europa Galante, an ensemble specialising in Baroque repertoire. Throughout his career he has also collaborated with La Risonanza, Zephyro and Lisbon’s Divino Sospiro. He currently performs as a violinist with the Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble and collaborates with several Israeli ensembles, including the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra. He recently made his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York.
Alongside him is ShuYue Chen, a violinist born in China, where she began studying the instrument at the age of seven. After moving to Italy in 2021, she earned her advanced diploma in modern violin at the Brescia Conservatory and went on to pursue further training in Baroque violin at the Bolzano Conservatory. She is a member of the National Baroque Orchestra of Italian Conservatories.
The concert “Dal Barocco al Klezmer” will take place on Sunday 25 October at 9pm at the Church of San Francesco in San Marino, with free-will admission.
For further information, contact the organisers at cameratatitano@omniway.sm.
