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Derive is the title of the 11th edition of the Chigiana International Festival & Summer Academy . Over 100 events in the most suggestive places of Siena and the Sienese lands.

From July 9th to September 2nd , the Chigiana International Festival & Summer Academy (https://www.chigiana.org/derive/) under the artistic direction of Nicola Sani , will bring to life over 100 events – divided into 7 thematic paths – Special Events, Legends, Today, Opera, Off the wall, Factor, Lounge – with over 800 musical performers involved and 6 resident ensembles, who will also offer the opportunity to listen to numerous world premieres , some of which commissioned by the Chigiana Academy. The protagonists will be performers and artists from all over the world alongside the young talents of the 94th Chigiana Summer Academy with 33 advanced training courses , the highest number ever . An educational offering of extraordinary breadth and quality.

With the 2025 edition, the Festival confirms its high international standing, distinguishing itself among the great summer creative festivals for its sustainable and integrated festival formula , capable of combining in a unique way in Italy high-level training , the launch of the careers of future protagonists of international concert music, great concerts with exceptional performers and the production of works and musical events intended for the general public.

The title of the 2025 edition, Derive , is taken from two of the most famous compositions by Pierre Boulez , to whom this year’s centenary of his birth is dedicated a broad focus . With its original graphic image, Derive accompanies the listener in the free exploration of new routes and itineraries in sound in time and space, across the centuries and cultures , from East to West, from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first century. “A term – underlines the artistic director of the festival Nicola Sani – that is well suited to a festival that invites you to range between the most diverse forms and languages ​​of music , indicating the possible drifts , even in musical paths, through time, space and the different cultures of our planet”.

Among the great protagonists of this edition Salomé Haller, Lilya Zilberstein, Tabea Zimmermann, Salvatore Accardo, James Conlon, Salvatore Sciarrino, Philippe Manoury, Ilya Gringolts, Alessandro Carbonare, Michel Tabachnik, Luciano Acocella, David Krakauer, Kathleen Tagg, Gianluca Codeghini, Anton Genzerberg, Francesco Corti, Sara Mingardo, Bruno Giuranna, Andrea Molino, Matteo D’Amico, Sandro Cappelletto, Florentine Klepper, Clive Greensmith, David Geringas, Ian Fountain, Giuseppe Ettorre, Patrick Gallois, Fabrice Pierre, Christian Schmitt, Ivo Nilsson, Kai Röhrig, William Grant Naboré, Alvise Vidolin, Nicola Bernardini, Marcello Panni, Tonino Battista, Antonio Caggiano, Lorenzo Donati, Giovanni Puddu, Livia Rado, Ettore Pagano, MDI Ensemble, Gareth Davis, Ensemble Odhecaton, Stefan David Hummel, Vittorio Ghielmi, Luca Pianca, Alfredo Bernardini, the great Puerto Rican saxophonist Miguel Zenón in concert with the Sincronie Quartet for Chigiana meets Siena Jazz, Ellen Arkbro, special guest, with the Nightclouds project in Italian premiere for Current shapes . And many others.

A famous song by the band “police” is called “message in a bottle”If you throw a message into the sea or write it in a diary, we know that there is a chance that someday, somewhere someone will read it. 

If, on the other hand, if you feel compelled to write something down, but you hide it where it won’t be found, who is that message for? After visiting the exhibition “Siena the rise of painting” at the MET in New York and in proximity of the opening of the same at the National Gallery in London, I reflected on the work of the 14th century Sienese which most moved me.  

You might never have heard of Lando di Pietro, in comparison with the many great Sienese artists such as Duccio di Boninsegna, Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers whose works are depicted in all the art history texts. But although he defined himself as a simple Goldsmith, we know instead that Lando di PIetro was the creator of a wooden sculpture featured in the exhibit as well as architect and engineer of the unfinished work of the “new Cathedral” of Siena. It was this man whose message deeply impressed me, a message he left that goes beyond the sacred or profane message of the work itself. 

In 1338, the year in which the great Ambrogio Lorenzetti was working on his most innovative work “Allegory and Effects of Good and Bad Government” at the Palazzo del Popolo in Siena, in fact a masterpiece of territorial marketing, secular propaganda and a Socratic message with the common good at its center, the humble and pious Lando di Pietro, outside the city walls of Siena, was carving a wooden crucifix for the friars of the Basilica dell’Osservanza.

Many centuries later, on January 23, 1944, the Allies, in an attempt to bomb the Siena train station to prevent the German occupiers from retreating behind the Gothic Line, missed their target and accidentally hit the Basilica dell’ Osservanza. We know there are no good wars: in 1944 there were intelligent people with stupid bombs, today we have stupid people with Smart bombs, but both result in destruction and deaths are inevitable and the poor crucifix was no exception!

The body of Jesus was torn apart – and the few still smoking remains were recovered by the friars, a knee and the skull. The friars were unaware that Lando di Pietro had not sculpted the skull of Jesus from a single piece of wood but rather in 2 parts masterfully glued together – why? so as to hide in the middle a scroll that was a prayer addressed to the saints and to the son of God!

In it, he asks for mercy for himself and his family, and protection from the enemies of God for all humankind! This may be an early sign of the thinking we associate with the Renaissance- rather than looking inward, he is thinking of all humanity. Then in a postscript Lando expresses the hope that those kneeling before the crucifix will worship Jesus, not this piece of wood in His likeness. This private message, the horizons of this artist, his spirituality and his modesty have left a lasting impression on me, more so perhaps even than the great masters I listed above. are values ​​that lead me to think that he might be uncomfortable in today’s society. 

Many think of the years around 1300 as “backwards”. Consider this, however: 

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously declared “God is dead” — he did this to point out the decline of one civilization and the beginning of another in which God cannot be at the center of the existence of the human race. It would instead have been unthinkable to remove God from the society of 1300. 

Lando di Pietro gives us an intimate fragment of a medieval man who is in antithesis with the negative sense that many give to that historical period!