An 80th birthday tribute to Luca Lombardi at the Goethe Institute with the illustrious beginning of Roberto Prosseda’s journey of exploration into Piano Italiano
The project opens Piano Italiano , directed by Roberto Prosseda, conceived in 2025 to represent the excellence of Italian piano throughout the country, and represents a collective tribute to one of the most significant figures of contemporary music.
The concert featured Roberto Prosseda, performing some piano compositions by Luca Lombardi, flanked by two young emerging pianists Matteo Carnuccio and Filippo Tenisci, entrusted with the premiere of numerous musical tributes written especially for the occasion by composers from different countries: Samuel Adler, Francesco Antonioni, Tzvi Avni, Josef Bardanashvili, Matteo D’Amico, Giordano De Nisi, Fabrizio De Rossi Re, Peter Michael Hamel, Marcello Panni, Yuval Shaked, Stefano Taglietti, Roberta Vacca.
The concert was introduced by Sandro Cappelletto and Matthias Theodor Vogt.
The program alternated important piano works by Lombardi, including Wiederkehr, Mendelssohn im jüdischen Museum Berlin , with a series of pieces composed as a tribute to the Maestro by contemporary international authors.These new compositions – for piano with two, three or four hands – constitute a mosaic of styles and poetics that testify to the vast network of artistic relationships built by Lombardi during his long career.
These new compositions – for piano with two, three or four hands – constitute a mosaic of styles and poetics that testify to the vast network of artistic relationships built by Lombardi during his long career.
At the end of the concert, on March 27 and 28 there was a conference “Quo vadis, commitment? Trends and ideas of music from the 60s to today” – A symposium in honour of Luca Lombardi’s eightieth birthday. This is a project realised in collaboration between the German Historical Institute of Rome, the Seminary of Musicology of the University of Heidelberg, the “La Sapienza” University of Rome and the Goethe-Institut of Rome.The concert of March 27 also was the official opening of the “Piano Italiano” 2026 festival, organised by the Mendelssohn Association, under the artistic direction of Roberto Prosseda.
This is the second edition of this season, dedicated to Italian piano music in all 20 concerts, which are distributed in different Italian cities and regions throughout 2026.
“I am really happy to announce the second edition of Piano Italiano” – comments Roberto Prosseda – “on the occasion of a very special event: on March 27 we celebrate one of the greatest living composers, Luca Lombardi, to whom I am also bound by a deep friendship for more than twenty years, and which will be celebrated with a real musical party: 12 composers have written new piano songs in his honour, and we will all listen to them in their first performance, alongside Luca Lombardi’s main piano works. This is the spirit of “Piano Italiano”: promoting quality Italian piano music, with particular attention to the most authentic and less commercial artistic voices, and at the same time giving space to new generations of pianists and composers, as also happens in this concert, thanks to the presence of the young talents Filippo Tenisci and Matteo Carnuccio”.
The Italian Piano season will continue with concerts at the Palazzo delle Cultures in Velletri, in Asolo at the Auditorium San Gottardo, then Rovigo, Turin, Florence and other Italian cities. Among the pianists who will perform this year, always in programs focussed on the Italian piano repertoire, will be Maurizio Baglini, Bruno Canino, Alberto Chines, Emanuele Delucchi, Massimiliano Génot, Benedetto Lupo, Alessandro Marangoni, Ruben Micieli, Marco Scolastra.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 