Tino Flautino and Tomcat Leo

Maurice Steger (recorder & conductor) and Nikolaus Schmid (narrator) are the leading lights at this year’s family concert on 30 July (5 pm) in the concert hall of Arena Klosters.

Last year’s family concert at Klosters Music was a premiere – and a resounding success. So it makes good sense to continue the enthusiastically received format this year. As with a real symphony concert, the concert hall at Arena Klosters will this time be the setting for Tino Flautino’s adventure. Only you will be as close to the action as you were in the old primary school building last year. Mats will be laid out in front of the seats and gym benches set out. And there’s free ice cream again after the music.

King Tino Flautino no longer wants to rule, but would rather make music. So he leaves the sceptre to his wife and devotes himself entirely to playing the flute. While walking in the castle gardens, he finds a bundle of sheet music. But the last sheet of music is missing. The long, adventurous search for the lost sounds begins. “Tino Flautino and Tomcat Leo” is the latest story by fairytale author Jolanda Steiner in the successful Tino Flautino series, with which Maurice Steger brings classical music closer to a young audience (suitable for children aged 6 and over). Together with narrator Nikolaus Schmid, who brought Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals” to life last year at Klosters Music, and members of the La Cetra Barockorchester Basel, the Swiss flautist embarks on a musical journey. The children need only bring their imagination.

Tino Flautino has a magic carpet for his journey, with which he can fly anywhere as soon as his flight music, the first movement from the recorder concerto in C major by Georg Philipp Telemann, rings out. The first destination is Leipzig, where the royal flautist meets the famous composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Unfortunately, he can’t give him any advice, but at least Tino can listen to a few bars of his harpsichord concerto in D minor. From the east, the journey continues westwards directly to the palace of Louis XIV in Versailles, where the Sun King is dancing with his court composer Jean-Baptiste Lully. But he is of no more help to Tino Flautino than George Frideric Händel in London. The journey is not entirely in vain, however, because he learns wonderful music along the way, such as Lully’s colourful “Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs” or Händel’s recorder concerto in F major. It is only Leo Leonardo’s cat in Naples that puts Tino Flautino on the right track. It leads him to the last stop on the journey: Antonio Vivaldi in Venice. The story comes to a head. There is a theft and even a chase. Whether Tino Flautino finds the missing sheet of music for the Concerto in A minor by Neapolitan composer Domenico Sarro at the end is not revealed. What is certain, however, is that the young audience will experience an educational, entertaining tour, or rather sightseeing flight, through European music history in a playful way with “Tino Flautino and Tomcat Leo”. In addition to the composers already mentioned, you will also get to know many others such as Leonardo Leo, John Baston and Giuseppe Sammartini. Excerpts from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s first movement of his “A Little Night Music” may already be familiar to some of you.

TINO FLAUTINO AND TOMCAT LEO
30 July, 5 pm, Concert Hall, Arena Klosters
Maurice Steger (Recorder & Conductor), Nikolaus Schmid (Narrator), Ensemble of La Cetra Barockorchester Basel