The attractions of PIMF’s Music in the Mansion – held each year in Miami, Florida between Christmas and New Years – are undeniable… escaping winter weather to make music, friends, and memories in a gorgeous location; studying with members of The Philadelphia Orchestra while friends and family along for the trip enjoy the nearby Florida Keys; leaving PIMF a more skilled musician and performer. It’s been a successful and very popular program.
Which got PIMF President Sandy Marcucci thinking… (She’s ALWAYS thinking, btw)…
How to serve musician families looking for a similar training experience but in a different kind of setting and in a different season?
Done, done, and done! PIMF’s latest intensive for strings really over-delivers. Introducing
Philadelphia International Music Festival – Vanoli Cremona
“We’re excited to be able to offer our programming in Italy’s historic violin capital,” Sandy said. “We’re beginning this new festival with string instruments, appropriately, but we expect to see it grow as all of our other programs have.”
Che fantastico! PIMF is enrolling violin and cello students ages 13 through 19 to study with members of The Philadelphia Orchestra IN ITALY, July 28-August 7, 2025. Family and friends traveling with the students will experience the culture, food, history and overall dolce vita of surrounding Northern Italy while the musicians polish their skills in Cremona.
All travelers to PIMF Italy start the adventure with a tour of Milan upon arrival – one of the world’s fashion capitals and opera capitals! We’ll see La Scala Opera House, where Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti, Meyerbeer, Rossini, and even Poulenc premiered their works to the most passionate and discriminating critics to ever stare at a stage.
The next day takes the group to epic Verona, to tour the streets where Romeo was smitten by Juliet (and see THAT balcony, so they say!), and a majestic Roman amphitheater that hosts performances to this day.
Home base for everyone on the trip is the storied city of Cremona, a Medieval jewel and the violin-making capital of the Universe. Cremona’s ancient violin-making tradition was deemed deserving of protection on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2012. Cremona celebrates string instruments on every street, as well as history, delicious foods, and music music MUSIC.
Like our Music in the Mansion winter program, enrolled students will immerse themselves in their training with private lessons, studio classes, daily workouts with a piano accompanist, daily solo performance classes, and focused practice — but in possibly the most inspiring setting a string musician can imagine, steps away from the streets Stradivari himself strode.
While the students settle in for their studies, family and friends settle in for a couple of days of pampering at the L’Albereta Spa and Winery, and a couple of day trips.
The porticoed city of Bologna is a UNESCO City of Music but certainly didn’t need that 21st century honor to build that reputation – Mozart traveled there to enroll in its famed Accademia Filarmonica in 1770! Vibe in Bologna’s historic and lively Piazza Maggiore and check out its pair of leaning towers.
Parma is chock full of spectacular Romanesque architecture and cheese wheels larger than grade-school children. And in a country of gorgeous and historic theaters, Parma’s Teatro Regio Opera House is considered one of its finest.
The entire group converges in Cremona for Day 8 of this trip to enjoy the Grand Finale concerts of PIMF-Italy on one of the largest stages in Italy: the Ponchielli Opera House.
Mozart performed there. Just let that cook.
The traveling band gets back together after the finale and wraps up this glorious sojourn with more glorious scenery. We’ll live like Italian in-country tourists with a visit to spectacular Lake Garda, the largest lake in Italy, and at press time we’re deciding how to plan the day, as we’ll have to choose from brightly colored towns, castles and Roman ruins, beaches and vineyards, amusement parks and historical sites scattered on its shores.
And what would a trip to Northern Italy be without a visit to the city of gondolas, canals, and music — Venice! A postcard city that must be experienced to be believed – 118 islands connected by 400 bridges and brimming with Gothic architecture, Renaissance and Baroque buildings, wide piazzas (all built on stilts!), and narrow canals.
Just wandering and wondering for a day checks off a bucketful of bucket lists, but if we really want to nerd out, the Venice Music Museum showcases 300 years’ worth of stringed instruments in a Renaissance church, what a walk-through! The Church of S. Maria della Pietà is known as Vivaldi Church Venice because it was rebuilt magnificently in the 18th century on the site of the one where The Red Priest himself worked and composed.
Ready to chill with your cello and vibe with your violin in the country where it happened? Join PIMF in Italy this summer!
