50 years of encounters on the Ceresio

The fiftieth edition marks a special moment in the history of Ceresio Estate. After a 2025 season dedicated to emerging and established musicians with a strong connection to Lugano, 2026 opens the doors to an international dimension, welcoming artists of exceptional prestige appearing in our region for the first time.

SOUNDS OF LA SCALA
Teatro alla Scala in Milan will be present in several concerts. Audiences will hear the La Scala Brass Quintet with our Francesco Tamiati on first trumpet, and will meet Davide Alogna together with the principal players of the La Scala orchestra in a programme that crosses Europe and South America. The concert dedicated to Hermann Hesse will feature the voice of Serena Farnocchia, accompanied at the piano by Paolo Raffo, both at home at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and enriched by readings from the actor Emanuele Santoro.

FIRST APPEARANCES IN THE LUGANO REGION
Among the guests performing for the first time on the shores of the Ceresio, the Kazakh violinist Aiman Mussakhajayeva stands out: founder of the National Conservatory and Symphony Orchestra of Astana, UNESCO Artist for Peace, and winner of some of the most prestigious international violin competitions. The season will also welcome the Egyptian conductor Ahmed El Saedi, current director of the Cairo Opera, the Italian conductor Teresa Satalino with the AYSO Youth Orchestra, and the Turkish conductor Hakan Şensoy. The closing concert in the church of Gandria will also host a particularly awaited duo: the violinist Matteo Calosci and the guitarist Giulio Tampalini, both among the most appreciated Italian performers of their respective instruments.

TICINO EXCELLENCE
Alongside its international guests, the festival continues to highlight some of the most significant musicians from our region. Some of them took their first steps at Ceresio Estate before establishing themselves in important Swiss and European concert circles. Marco Santilli, Luca Pianca, Fiorenza de Donatis, Duilio Galfetti and Elisa Netzer represent very different artistic sensibilities, united by constant musical research and by a deep connection with Italian-speaking Switzerland.

SPECIAL EVENTS
The opening concert on 19 June will take place in Melide, on the day and in the place where Alice Moretti was born, a decisive figure in the history of Ceresio Estate. A woman of great cultural sensitivity and a leading figure in Ticino’s political life, she understood the value of a festival capable of bringing together music, artistic heritage and the promotion of the territory. In Morcote, the vocal group Rebel Bit will bring to the stage one of the most original emerging realities on the contemporary vocal scene. Through a surprising fusion of voice, technology and creativity, the group is gaining international audiences and recognition, receiving awards in important contexts dedicated to a cappella vocal music. In Tesserete, the Quartetto d'archi Liviabella will pay tribute to the composer Lino Liviabella, placing his works alongside those of Ottorino Respighi and Maurice Ravel in a programme devoted to the rediscovery of one of the most significant and less frequently performed figures in twentieth-century Italian music.

A SPACE FOR YOUNG EMERGING ARTISTS
Among the aims that have accompanied Ceresio Estate since its beginnings is also the desire to offer space to new generations of performers. In Paradiso, the young Turkish flautist Zeynep Canay, trained in Lugano in Andrea Oliva’s class, will perform Mozart’s Concerto in G major under the direction of Hakan Şensoy. The programme will lead the audience into late eighteenth-century Vienna, when the fascination exerted by the Ottoman Empire influenced music, fashion and taste, leaving deep traces also in the musical imagination of Mozart and his contemporaries.

A STORY THAT CONTINUES
Fifty years after the first concerts, Ceresio Estate continues to create encounters. A more direct encounter between artists and audience. Between listeners, music lovers and travellers. A shared space for those who live these places every day and those who discover them for the first time. For centuries, the Ceresio region saw sculptors, architects, stucco artists and craftsmen leave their homeland and leave their mark on the most important courts and cities of Europe. In 2026, that journey seems ideally to reverse its direction. Now it is the artists who reach the Ceresio. Perhaps this is the deepest meaning of the fiftieth edition. Not simply to celebrate a story half a century long. But to continue writing it.