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Cultural Corner
Classical Music with Lima's Philharmonic Society
By Eleanor Griffis

The beginnings, in 1907

When the weather begins to get cooler in Lima, the music scene starts to pick up. And the longest season is the classical music program organized every year by the Sociedad Filarmonica de Lima, a series of 12 concerts that are given between April and October.

This year, an exception, there are no concerts in May, but you can begin setting aside dates and buying tickets for the performances that continue as of June 7th.

The Filarmonica is 98 years old this year, founded in 1907 by a group of professional and amateur musicians who would get together to make music in the home of a German expatriate, Carlos Einfeldt, in the Quinta Heeren in downtown Lima. These Peruvian and foreign music lovers performed their first concert that same year in the very elegant Palacio de la Exposición, now the Museo de Arte.

Over the years, the Filarmonica expanded its annual concert series to include local and foreign singers, pianists, violinists and chamber groups. The standard season that is now a fixture on Lima's classical music scene has been organized continuously since 1971, offering some of the world's leading groups and musicians. This is made possible by the generous support of local sponsors and most especially the governments and cultural institutes of the different countries.

The concerts this year, held at the Santa Ursula Auditorium opposite the Swissotel in San Isidro, are listed below. Season and individual tickets are available at Teleticket in Wong and Metro, and also an hour before each concert at the auditorium.

JUNE 7 -- Evgeni Mikhailov, 33 year-old pianist from Russia, will play compositions by Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Glinka-Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky.

JUNE 14 -- American violinist David Garrett and pianist Paula Peluso of Argentina will play Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.

JUNE 21 -- The Academy Ensemble from St. Martin in the Fields, London, is a chamber orchestra which has recorded over 30 CDs of classical music and in Lima will be playing music by Mozart, Martinu and Dvorak.

JULY 5 -- The Artemis String Quartet, from Germany, has played at Carnegie Hall and is a standard guest at leading festivals in Europe. Last year they toured the U.S., Japan and Australia. In Lima, they will play three quartets by Beethoven.

August will bring the French pianist Jonathan Gilad, and later the David String Quartet from Italy, followed by the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra in September, and a busy October with the chamber Ensemble L'Yriade from France, the Mandelring Quartet from Germany, and the local Carmina Nova group of ten musicians and five singers to perform medieval music.

For more detail, check www.socfillimaperu.com.pe or obtain a program at Teleticket in Wong or Metro.