Welcome to Venice 2025!
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
30 April - 3 May 2025
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IN SPRING, 2025, THE VENICE MANDOLIN FESTIVAL INVITES
mandolin and guitar orchestras, professional players and conductors, from all over the world, to enjoy great music and art in Venice. How would you and your mandolin orchestra like to make music in Venice, one of the most beautiful cities in the world?
Come to Venice with your orchestra and give concerts in incredibly beautiful churches and palaces dating back to the Middle Ages. In May, 2025, the Venice Mandolin Festival will continue the unique tradition of a mandolin festival in Venice, a festival of concerts for everybody who loves to play and hear the mandolin, mandola and guitar.
Yet again, this exciting event will bring together enthusiasts from all over the world to play, to meet, exchange stories and ideas, and form international friendships. Who knows where it can lead? Get in touch with us so we can tell you more about how the Festival works.
On this website you will find free sheet-music and mp3-files. You are very welcome to play the music, you can find here, with your mandolin and guitar orchestra in the concerts of The Venice Mandolin Festival 2025. Please go to the navigation bar PREVIOUS PROGRAM 2024 and MANDOLIN MUSIC and scroll down and you will find the music. It is also free to play for all orchestras interested in this music, even if you don't participate in The Venice Mandolin Festival. Good luck with your practise!
• Come to amazing Venice and enjoy being part of this very special international musical community. Everyone is welcome!
• Come to Venice with your orchestra and be part of The fourth Venice Mandolin Festival 2025!
THE VENICE MANDOLIN FESTIVAL
THE MANDOLIN ACADEMY
We organise concerts and festivals in Sweden and Italy
ENGLISH
Here you can reach us! Call or write to us! We will answer your questions as soon as we can. Sometimes we are on tour and then the answers may take a little longer, but we answer.
SVENSKA
Här når du oss! Ring eller skriv till oss! Vi svarar på dina frågor så fort vi kan. Ibland är vi på turné och då kan
svaren dröja lite längre, men vi svarar.
ITALIANO
Qui puoi raggiungerci! Chiamaci o scrivici! Risponderemo alle tue domande il prima possibile. A volte siamo in tour e poi le risposte possono richiedere un po 'più di tempo, ma rispondiamo.
Artistic director Lars Forslund
MANDOLIN ACADEMY
c/o VIVALDI FESTIVAL
Riddaregatan 6 B
599 31 Ödeshög
S W E D E N
Mobil / Whats up: +46 736 32 87 44
Mail: info@mandolin.academy
Website: www.mandolin.academy
Links to our other festivals:
CAMERATA MANDOLINO CLASSICO
has received international recognition as a skilled interpreter of Venetian baroque music. The ensemble has made numerous and extensive tours in Japan, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy and Sweden.
LARS FORSLUND - mandolin
Lars Forslund is Artistic Director of the Vivaldi Festival in Venice and Sweden. With his best friend and mandolin teacher Keith Harris, he also organise concerts and seminars at The Mandolin Academy in Venice. Lars lived in Rome as a child, studied Italian in Florence and lives since 1998 part of the year in Venice.
OUR CONCERTS
has been critically acclaimed and hugely appreciated by standing ovation from an enthusiastic audience.
JAPAN AND THE MANDOLIN
In the eighties and nineties, worked and studied Lars in Kobe in Japan for the Master Yasuo Kuwahara, and also learned the Japanese language. Then they developed a long partnership, in the field of mandolin music, between Japan and Sweden. 1983 played Lars and Yasuo in Das Deutsche Zupforchester under the leadership of Siegfried Beherend and with Takashi Ochi as concertmaster.
MANDOLIN PLAYING IN SWEDISH TV 1982
Lars founded Sweden's first international mandolin festival at Visingsö in Sweden. At the festival he made a recording with the mandolin and guitar orchestra Musica Festiva. Music by Vivaldi from the disc became the theme song of SVT's Italian language course “Buon giorno Italia”. Most recently Lars was mandolin soloist at the Venice Carnival 2016 and cicerone, along with Ann Lundberg, in a popular television program by SVT.
Lars Forslund - mandolin
“The musicality of Lars Forslund was revealed especially in the Adagio of the Sonatina in C minor for mandolin and harpsichord by Beethoven, which was rendered with subtlety of phrasing and subtle nuances of expression". Letizia Michielon, Il Gazzettino
A review from Venice at the Palazzo Querini:
“Forslund was the master of about every nuance of dynamics and tone you could imagine in the mandolin, as well as some you might not. He could make the instrument sharp and piercing, as well as muted and dark". Michel Miller Berkshire Review
THE CONCERTS
Concerts will be held in the heart of Venice and on the beautiful island of Lido di Venezia, 15 minutes from St Mark’s Square by vaporetto
(water bus) number 1.
The general details are based on our experience at previous Festivals
• Both artistically and organisationally, it’s best if each visiting ensemble / orchestra presents one complete concert of its own.
• Each concert should last about 60 minutes and your orchestra will play two concerts.
Do you have any questions?
It is impossible to explain everything on a website, so please contact us with your particular questions about the Venice Mandolin Festival. We will do our best to answer them. Do not hesitate to ask anything that interests you!
INFORMATION 2025
THE VENICE MANDOLIN FESTIVAL:
Wednesday 30 April:
19:00 inaguration concert.
Thursday 1 May:
10:00 rehearsal, 13: 00 break.
Concerts 15:00, 17:00 & 19:00.
Friday 2 May:
10:00 rehearsal, 13: 00 break.
Concerts 15:00, 17:00 & 19:00.
Saturday 3 May:
10:00 rehearsal, 13: 00 break.
Concerts 15:00, 17:00, gala party 19:00
THE PRICE INCLUDES:
Playing two concerts with your own orchestra in The Venice Mandolin Festival in historical part of Venice and at Lido di Venezia. All rehearsals.
Administration and preparations. Marketing - posters - advertising.
Rent of chuches & locations in Venice.
Rent of rehearsal hall. Gala concert & Carnival party with snacks and prosecco in a private location.
PARTICIPATION FEE:
Euro € 150 / person for adults
Euro € 100 / person for students
Euro € 50 / person for companions
ACCOMMODATION & TRANSPORT: Accommodation, transport in Italy and flights to and from Italy, food & drinks are not included in the price, except snacks and prosecco in the final party. You do best to book your own hotel or private apartment in Venice that you can easily find online.
EXTRA DAYS:
For those of you who come to Venice earlier or stay a few days extra, we can arrange a guided tour. We visit cafes, ice cream bars (gelaterie), wine cellars. We look at architecture, art and tell the story of Vivaldi. Euro € 10 / person
REGISTRATION & INFORMATION
Klick here!
Reservation for any changes
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CAMERATA MANDOLINO CLASSICO PLAYS VIVALDI & BACH
A mandolin and guitar orchestra from Sweden - Lars Forslund, conductor
LARS FORSLUND PLAYS BACH - AN INSPIREING WINE CONCERTO
Lars plays on a mandolin built by Gabriele Pandini, Italy
LARS FORSLUND PLAYS BACH - AN INSPIREING CAFÉ CONCERTO
Lars plays on a mandolin built by Gabriele Pandini, Italy
LARS FORSLUND PLAYS SCARLATTI WITH VENETIAN FRIENDS
Lars plays on a mandolin built by Daigoro Ochiai, Japan
CAMERATA MANDOLINO CLASSICO PLAYS NÄSLUND
Concerto for guitar, Kenneth Frejd - guitar, Keith Harris - conductor - Omberg, Sweden 2007
Please contact us with your questions about The Venice Mandolin Festival.
We have much more to tell you about the organisation, soloists,
orchestras, concerts, repertory, the big party and so on.
We are very happy to try to answer your questions.
Don't hesitate to ask everything you wonder!
Reservation for any changes
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Beautiful 3D films about The Carnival of Venice in the 18th century. Or play along to our soundtracks.
Music by Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Näslund and others
