On Thursday, May 14 at 8 PM, in the Orchestra Hall of the Maggio, the concert series in collaboration with the Bartolomeo Cristofori Fortepiano Academy will begin.

Four additional evenings are scheduled: May 19 and 26, and June 3 and 9.

The soloist for the May 14 concert — on the Stein fortepiano — will be Roberto Prosseda.

The program features music by Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, and Alfonso Rendano.

Florence, May 13, 2026 – On Thursday, May 14 at 8 PM, in the evocative Orchestra Hall of the Teatro del Maggio, the first of five concerts organized in collaboration with the Bartolomeo Cristofori Academy will take place.

The evening’s soloist, performing on a Stein fortepiano, will be Roberto Prosseda.

In the following concerts, the soloists will be: Olga Pashchenko on May 19 performing on a Pleyel fortepiano; Wolfgang Brunner on May 26 on a Fritz fortepiano; Jin Ju on June 3 on a Lange fortepiano; and Yuan Sheng on June 9 on a Graf fortepiano.

The concert series — marking the eleventh consecutive year of collaboration between the Teatro del Maggio and the Bartolomeo Cristofori Academy — is titled From Distant Lands and Peoples… and takes inspiration from Robert Schumann’s celebrated piano piece Von fremden Ländern und Menschen, evoking a musical journey through different cultures, styles, and national traditions. Each of the five performers has in fact been invited to create an evocative program paying tribute to their own musical culture or to a specific national tradition. The aim is to transform each concert into a sort of “musical portrait,” in which repertoire, style, and historical instrument interact to offer audiences a vivid and authentic perspective on 19th-century European music.

The May 14 concert program includes Kinderszenen, Op. 15 by Robert Schumann; the Fantasy in E major on the Irish song The Last Rose of Summer, Op. 15 by Felix Mendelssohn; the Nocturne in E major by Alfonso Rendano; and concludes with two further works by Robert Schumann: Arabeske in C major, Op. 18 and Fantasie in C major, Op. 17.

During the presentation of this new project, the Academy’s president, Mauro Campus, stated: “Last year, the collaboration between the Bartolomeo Cristofori Academy and the Maggio surpassed its tenth anniversary. This is not only a source of pride, but above all a sign of institutional vitality: an encounter that is not abstract, but deeply rooted in the city, its musical associations, and the many realities that nourish its cultural vitality. For this reason, we are particularly pleased to present this new chapter in the collaboration between the Fortepiano Academy and the Maggio, which this year offers audiences a cycle of five concerts. The program moves with natural elegance through a broad repertoire, restoring to the featured compositions their true historical dimension — namely, the possibility of hearing them performed on the instruments for which they were originally conceived.”