Ceresio Estate 2026

CERESIO ESTATE CELEBRATES 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 united by a strong connection with Lugano, the 2026 edition opens up to an international dimension. The new season will bring to Lake Lugano some of the most interesting performers on the contemporary music scene, alongside important collaborations with the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and numerous excellences from Italian-speaking Switzerland.

Fifty years after the first concerts, Ceresio Estate continues to build encounters. Between artists and audiences. Between those who live these places every day and those who discover them for the first time. Between the historical heritage of the region and live music.

From 19 June to 27 September, fifteen concerts will lead audiences to discover churches, villages and places rich in history overlooking Lake Lugano. This formula has characterised the festival for half a century and continues to bring together music, art and territory.

Among the protagonists of the season are several artists connected with the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Audiences will hear the Brass Quintet of La Scala and encounter Davide Alogna together with Musicians from La Scala in a programme crossing Europe and South America. The event dedicated to Hermann Hesse will also feature soprano Serena Farnocchia, who began her career in Philadelphia alongside Luciano Pavarotti and was soon invited by Riccardo Muti to appear on the stage of La Scala.

In 2026, numerous artists will perform in the Luganese for the first time. They include Kazakh violinist Aiman Mussakhajayeva, one of the most important interpreters of her generation, Egyptian conductor Ahmed El Saedi, conductor Teresa Satalino leading the AYSO Youth Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Hakan Şensoy, the first Turkish musician to have conducted at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. The closing concert in the Church of San Vigilio in Gandria will also feature violinist Matteo Calosci and guitarist Giulio Tampalini.

Alongside international guests, the festival continues to highlight some of the most representative musicians of Italian-speaking Switzerland. Artists such as Luca Pianca, Fiorenza de Donatis, Duilio Galfetti, Elisa Netzer and Marco Santilli show that Ticino is not only a place capable of welcoming great performers from abroad, but also a land that continues to train and support artistic personalities active at the highest levels of European musical life.

The season will also be enriched by several special events. The opening concert will take place in Melide on 19 June, in the place and on the exact anniversary of the birth of Alice Moretti, a central figure in Ticino’s cultural and political life and founder of Ceresio Estate. In Morcote, the vocal group Rebel Bit will present a concert of vocal music very close to pop culture, while in Tesserete the Liviabella String Quartet will give space to the music of Lino Liviabella in a project dedicated to rediscovering an important figure in twentieth-century Italian musical history.

The festival also confirms its attention to younger generations. 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. This event will lead audiences into late eighteenth-century Vienna, when the fascination exerted by the Ottoman Empire influenced the music, fashion and customs of the time.

For centuries, the Ceresio region saw sculptors, architects, stucco artists and master craftsmen leave for Europe’s most important cities, where they left their mark. In 2026, that journey seems ideally to take place in reverse. It is the artists who come to the Ceresio, not to celebrate a history half a century long, but to continue writing it.