Each concert explores the interplay between the instruments of eastern and western music, while a festival production on 7 August stages the spectacle “The Travels of Marco Polo”, an adaptation by Alain Carré of the Venetian explorer’s The Book of Wonders. On 12 August, the group Les Calissonnes performs a programme of 18th-century works, taking us on an imaginary journey from Vienna to St. Petersburg. On 14 August, the Ensemble Vallotti visits the Venetian Court in the programme “Bons baisers de Venise”, and on 17 August the Ensemble XVIII-21 recalls Pietro Della Valle’s travels to Persia.

For the festival’s opening concert, Concerto Soave proposes a rather more tempestuous journey entitled “Del Olimpo al Infierno; de una a otra orilla”. And, on 9 August, the Caecilia Concert will take its audience on a tour of 17th-century German music, including works by Buxtehude and his contemporaries, on the anniversary of the German composer’s death. Coinciding with the Festival there will be an exhibition of oil paintings by Pierre Noël, watercolours by Jean-Claude Tolza and photographs from the archives of M Bretón.

The Roman architecture of la Rotonde provides a magnificent setting for early music and contributes to the distinctive personality of this festival in which the exceptional beauty of the venue, the acoustics of the concert hall and the musical quality of the event itself, together with its highly original and creative programming, are all the more remarkable in a rural setting such as Simiane, a village with a population of only 540 and a concert hall that seats 140.

Over the past 25 years the Festival has organized more than 150 concerts which have drawn more than 17,000 visitors to Simiane to hear outstanding ensembles such as A Sei Voci, Daedalus, Organum, Venance Fortunat, Clément Janequin, Alla Francesca, Discantus, Sagittarius, Doulce Mémoire, Il Seminario Musicale, Le Parlement de Musique, Les Talens Lyriques, Trio Hantaï, Camerata Köln, La Fenice, Les Sacqueboutiers de Toulouse, Clemencic Consort, Stradivaria, L’Arpeggiata, Diabolus in Musica and an array of internationally acclaimed performers including Christophe Rousset, Wieland Kuijken, Pierre Hamon, Denis Raisin Dadre, Christina Pluhar, Jean Tubery, Agnès Mellon, Sandrine Piau, Maria Cristina Kiehr, Brigitte Lesne, Gérard Lesne and Josep Cabré. A happy anniversary to this extraordinary festival!