Two special events dedicated to the Capital of Culture fit in their own right into the programme of the 60th International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo. On Saturday 22 April at the Grande Theatre in Brescia and Thursday 4 May at the Donizetti in Bergamo, the La Scala Philharmonic, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, main conductor of the orchestra and La Scala Music Director, returns as guest. Soloist for both concerts, for the first time at the Festival, is Mao Fujita: a 23-year-old Japanese pianist, silver medallist at the 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition, who in recent months made his debut with the Milanese orchestra.

The programmes in the two cities are distinct: in Brescia, Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Tchaikovsky’s acclaimed Pathétique Symphony; in Bergamo, alongside Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3, Stravinsky’s Funeral Song and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 7.  

Thanks to contributions from A2A, the Alfa Acciai group and the SIAD group, the concerts will have a charitable aim. Through the purchase of each ticket, it will in fact be possible to contribute to the projects of the Energy Bank, a philanthropic organisation that supports people and families in economically and socially vulnerable situations, with a special focus on energy poverty.