The enchantress.

AuteurMawson, Emily
Fonction People: profile

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The magic of the summer evening lingers in the still aisle. Perched upon the chancel is an ethereal figure, cloaked in a haze of chiffon. Blonde waves frame her dainty face and four hundred pairs of eyes fix on her as she displays expressions of sadness, concentration and joy. There is no distinction between Sol Gabetta and her cello. As if enchanted, she cradles the rare Guadagini and pauses poised, then bows over it and plays a shuddering note of knife-edge clarity. A playful smile follows, the cello trills and the fairy queen becomes a child enraptured in its favourite toy.

Cello in the church

The church is Olsberg's baroque convent church, a dignified building tucked into Canton Aargau's rolling Frick valley. The fairytale performance is part of the 31-year-old cellist's own festival: Solsberg. "I moved to live in Olsberg in the February of 2006," Gabetta says in one breath, immediately questioning if this is correct." And the first festival took place that June. Can you imagine?"

Some doubted she would pull it off with scarce three months at hand--her "boyfriend" (a word she repeatedly drops into conversation with a smile) for one. "He told me I was completely crazy," she exclaims." And he should know--Christoph Muller organises Gstaad's Menuhin Festival. Gabetta reveals with a glint in her kind brown eyes that she insisted, "We cannot just leave it for one year--I have found the place."

She wanted to rekindle the cultural importance that Olsberg enjoyed during the Roman Empire. And the 800-year-old church--with its "story" and "not perfect" but "magical" acoustics--was an ideal venue. The couple decided to hold complimentary concerts and "see what happened." Seven years on, leading musicians--this year including Vilde Frang, winner of the 2012 Credit Suisse Young Musician Award--give enthralling performances during 14 days in June. Gabetta beams with pride that audiences and musicians have returned: "We have nine concerts and more or less 5,000 people [attend]," she says.

Mr Gabetta

Gabetta has been an acclaimed international performer since 2004, when she first played with the Viennese Philharmonic Orchestra. She won the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award in the same year and counts the 2008 Aargau Kulturpreis and the 2010 Gramophone Young Artist of the Year Award to her trophy cabinet.

She can captivate audiences in venues as grand as Zurich's Tonhalle (the "most beautiful" venue in Switzerland) with pieces from...

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