from Rhiannon Giddens to Max Cooper, all music from the Festival dei Due Mondi

Spoleto, June 21, 2023 - There is more than just classical at Festival dei Due Mondi. Along with residencies by Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the inaugural concert dedicated to Leoš Janáček and the return ofopera with Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande , the animals in music of the Midday Concerts and Olivier Messiaen's Harawi, the blues of African-American artist Lonnie Holley, the powerful voices of Imany and Rhiannon Giddens, and the electronics of Max Cooper are also on the way.

African-American artist Lonnie Holley, joined by duo Nelson Patton, brings to Spoleto66 the revolutionary power of his visions (June 24-25, Star Auditorium): famous for his sandstone sculptures and salvaged objects, he is also an avant-garde musician. His artworks make from contour to raw and passionate sounds.

Among the most prestigious names in world electronics, Max Cooper arrives to Spoleto with a powerful performance (June 28, Teatro Romano). In addition to the sound, Cooper controls live images projected onto the background of Teatro Romano, guiding the viewer on a multisensory, immersive journey of imposing sounds and hypnotic visuals.

The second Weekend opens with the powerful voice of Imany - "faith" in Swahili and stage name of Nadia Mladjao, in Piazza Duomo with her concert-show Voodoo cello (July 1). Born to Marseille from a family originally from the Comoros Islands, Imany enchants her audience with inspired compositions to soul, folk and blues. With the accompaniment of eight cellos, she transforms into a voodoo priestess, measuring herself against some of pop music's greatest hits, from Bob Marley to Daft Punk, from Imagine Dragons to Radiohead.

Also arriving at the prestigious Piazza Duomo in Spoleto, renewing a collaboration with Umbria Jazz, is American revelation singer Rhiannon Giddens (July 6) - recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2023 - accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi with whom she won a Grammy Award in 2022. Tracing Gaelic, American, African-American and Native-American traditions, Giddens takes aim at discrimination, singing the lives of people forced to to keep silent, from slaves to teenagers killed by police in urban suburbs.