I Concerti della Stauffer in giardino | 21 – 25 June 2026
From 21 to 25 June, the Garden of Palazzo Stauffer opens to the city of Cremona for five chamber music concerts. Although part of the Concerti della Stauffer series, these summer events have a distinctive character, given the intimate and immersive setting in which Stauffer students share with the audience the artistic path they have undertaken throughout the year.
The series opens with David Shifrin, one of the leading figures of the American clarinet school, who will play alongside two Stauffer Quartets. The programme continues with the great Romantic repertoire for piano trios and quartets, a virtuoso dialogue between violin and double bass, and an eclectic night with the double-bass ensemble. Five evenings that bring to the city a vivid sense of a shared journey, where ensemble playing and mutual listening take shape before the Cremonese audience.
The series is held under the patronage of the Province of Cremona, the Municipality di Cremona and the Consulate General of Switzerland in Milan.
Free admission with reservation from 15 June:
https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/i-concerti-della-stauffer-in-giardino-4844130
Il respiro delle corde
David Shifrin clarinet
Quartetto Goldberg
Quartetto Rilke
The opening evening’s programme will centre on two masterpieces of the repertoire for clarinet and strings: Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581 and Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115. In these works, the clarinet’s mellow, velvety timbre is woven into the texture of the strings, creating a single sound world in which the instrumental voices breathe together, blend and continually evolve. Guiding this musical journey, alongside the Goldberg Quartet and the Rilke Quartet, will be David Shifrin, one of the most distinguished clarinettists on the international concert stage, winner of the Avery Fisher Prize and renowned for a remarkable career spanning chamber music, solo performance and teaching.
Sunday, 21 June | 9 pm | Garden of Palazzo Stauffer
Intime armonie
Trio Visconti
Aida Piano Trio
Brahms and Mendelssohn offer two distinct approaches to the piano trio, one of the most intimate and refined forms of chamber music. On the one hand, there is the concentrated, restless intensity of Brahms’s Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, Op. 101; on the other, the luminous and fluid writing of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49, where Romantic urgency is combined with an extraordinary transparency of sound. The Trio Visconti and the Aida Piano Trio, participants in the Chamber Music course, will bring these works to life, placing at the heart of their interpretations the constant dialogue between piano and strings: a finely crafted musical drama shaped by momentum, lyricism and attentive listening.
Monday 22 June | 9 pm | Garden of Palazzo Stauffer
Estremi sonori
Giulia Cellacchi violin
Nicola Carrara double bass
Monica Cattarossi piano
The violin and the double bass inhabit opposite ends of the musical spectrum: one reaches towards the brilliance of the upper register, while the other moves within the depth of the bass line and the darker resonance of sound. Between these two poles stands the piano, forging connections, tensions and unexpected pathways. The evening will feature Stauffer students Giulia Cellacchi and Nicola Carrara — winners of the 2026 Rotary Club Cremona Scholarships for Violin and Double Bass respectively — joined at the piano by Monica Cattarossi. The programme includes Schubert’s “Arpeggione” Sonata, Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No. 2 and Waxman’s dazzling Carmen Fantasie.
Tuesday 23 June | 9 pm | Garden of Palazzo Stauffer
Bass Night
Stauffer Bass Ensemble
An evening entirely devoted to the double bass, the instrument which, more than any other in the string family, embodies a dual nature: the foundation of the ensemble, yet also a voice capable of remarkable timbral, virtuosic and expressive possibilities. Students from the Double Bass class will guide the audience through bold and unexpected sonic landscapes, where the instrument leaves behind its traditional role as harmonic support to become rhythm, song, collective energy and a vehicle for exploring subtle contrasts of light and shade. Bass Night will reveal the full range of what the double bass can become when pushed beyond its customary function through a constellation of works written for double bass ensembles.
Wednesday 24 June | 9 pm | Garden of Palazzo Stauffer
Trame romantiche
Quartetto Cino Ghedin
Quintetto Dedalo
The final concert leads the audience into the shadows and light of German Romanticism through two chamber music masterpieces by Brahms and Schumann: Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60 and Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44. Both works are charged with a feverish emotional intensity, their music continually breathing between ardour and melancholy, moments of burning urgency and passages of lyrical abandon. The Quartetto Cino Ghedin and the Quintetto Dedalo will explore the Romantic worlds of these two composers through music shaped by restrained confessions and dramatic outbursts.
Thursday 25 June | 9 pm | Garden of Palazzo Stauffer