Baroque Music Meets the Art of Typography
Musica è. Music is passion, creativity, commitment, collaboration and much more besides. Just like the printing industry. Italian Koenig & Bauer users were able to experience this at first hand at Tipoteca Italiana in Cornuda near Treviso in September.
Baroque music: it is the passion that unites the musicians in the Junges Musikpodium ensemble. Within the framework of the European Youth Workshop Dresden-Venice, outstanding talents from Saxony’s secondary school for music in Dresden come together with their counterparts from the Veneto region and from Strasbourg every two years. Under the guidance of Italian specialists, they devote a week to the art of playing music in the Baroque style. Four mentors from Junges Musikpodium – Alessandro Cappelletto (violin), Massimo Raccanelli (violoncello), Ivano Zanenghi (lute) and Alberto Busettini (harpsichord) – help the young musicians to revive the historical links between the royal court in Dresden and the musical culture of 18th-century Venice. At a series of concerts in the Veneto region and in Dresden, they take their listeners on a wonderful journey back in time to the age of Baroque and ‘La Serenissima’.
Silvio Antiga has managed to recreate an equally exciting journey through time. Last year, the co-proprietor of renowned Italian commercial printing company Grafiche Antiga invested in his first Rapida sheetfed offset press: the first Rapida 106 X to be installed in Italy. Antiga is, at the same time, the founder of the Tipoteca Italiana Foundation. Through this foundation, he has been collecting exhibits that bear witness to the history of typesetting and printing for more than 40 years. His Tipoteca Museum takes visitors on a stimulating journey from the early years of book printing through to modern typesetting and typeface design. Among the historical printing presses, probably the largest collection of wood and lead type sets in Italy, and a museum workshop in which school classes and others can try their own hand at typesetting and book printing, there is so much to discover that it is easy to spend a whole day at Tipoteca.
Established in 1999, the Junges Musikpodium with its youth workshop on Venetian music from the 17th and 18th centuries is a unique Baroque cooperation without equal in Europe 
Young musicians from Dresden, the Veneto region and Strasbourg dedicate themselves to Baroque music under the guidance of Italian specialists 
Ulrike Gondolatsch, director of the Junges Musikpodium association, and Peter Andrich, managing director of Koenig & Bauer (IT) welcome the print industry representatives in the auditorium of Tipoteca Italiana 
Junges Musikpodium concert in the festive hall of Tipoteca Italiana
Merging two extraordinary projects
What could be more logical, therefore, than to bring these two extraordinary projects together? And so it came about that users and friends from all over Northern Italy accepted Koenig & Bauer’s invitation to an art event with a difference.
The obligatory reception with aperitifs in the foyer enabled the trade visitors to make new contacts and meet up with old acquaintances before the evening’s main event in the modern auditorium. The musicians from the Junges Musikpodium ensemble captivated their audience with an hour-long concert of music by Antonio Vivaldi. The smaller size of the ensemble, a consequence of the pandemic, resulted in an especially intense musical experience. Everyone present was enthralled by the professionalism and dedication of the young musicians and their mentors, and rewarded their performance with standing ovations.
After the concert, Silvio Antiga treated his guests to an exclusive guided tour of ‘his’ Tipoteca Italiana. In the spirit of the cinema classic “Night at the Museum”, they were able to admire the treasures that Silvio Antiga’s foundation has collected over the decades – garnished with the founder’s own stories and anecdotes about the individual exhibits.
Hands-on museum: school classes and other visitors are able to set and print their own texts 
Design element comprising wooden letters in different typefaces and sizes 
Silvio Antiga, founder of the Tipoteca Italiana Foundation, took his guests on a personal guided tour of the museum and spoke passionately about some of the most important exhibits
Hungry for more
Knowing that so many new impressions would leave everyone rather hungry, the evening was rounded off with dinner together in Tipoteca’s restaurant, Le Corderie. The visitors were able to review the evening’s events over good food and fine wines, could speak in person with the musicians, and of course – most especially – were able to take every opportunity to discuss their own passion, the art of printing. All the tables were alive with conversion, friendships were sealed and experiences shared. It was already after midnight before the get-together drew to a close.
As the guests left, they took with them not only a host of pleasant memories, but perhaps also an important realisation: in their own different ways, everyone who contributed to the evening demonstrated how great things are born out of passion.