Artist Profile:
Anna Lardi

Anna Lardi is CEO of Music for Galway where she has been since 2003, and in a key leadership role since 2006. Anna steered the company through the challenges of recession and the changeover from its first paid former artistic director to the current one at the start of 2013. In close collaboration with the artistic director Finghin Collins and associate AD Mark Duley, she devised and oversaw SoundScapes, the MfG programme for Galway 2020, and co-created Cellissimo, out of which came the basic concept for Songs of Travel (SOT). SOT is a mid-size Creative Europe project that seeks to present co-commissioned music in such a way as to increase the empathy of all involved towards two burning issues of today: the environment and migration. Four festivals and one boutique gaming development company have come together to deliver this project. Some of the outputs of SOT will flow into Cellissimo, a new 9-day cello festival in May 2024, of which Galway Bay is Calling is part.

Anna was born in Switzerland. In 2022, she took a sabbatical and walked from ‘Home to Home’, from Galway to Chur (Switzerland). The effects of this journey continue to resonate in her life.