For 80 years, the Ascona Music Weeks have been the most prestigious classical music festival in Italian Switzerland, with a program composed of large symphonic concerts, chamber music evenings, and single instrument recitals. The most famous artists in the world have been to Ascona at least once and many of them have returned several times. The concerts take place in the suggestive scenery of the churches of the Papio College in Ascona and San Francesco in Locarno, two very beautiful buildings, with excellent acoustic characteristics, where the artists and the audience experience the concert in an engaging atmosphere, which invites concentration and pure enjoyment of music. Also this year, after his debut in the 2013 edition of the festival, the artistic director Francesco Piemontesi intends to present to his audience musical expressions of the highest international standard.