Piano star Alexander Malofeev debuts in concert with the Orchestra of Fondazione Arena
Last double appointment of May at the Teatro Filarmonico, Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd
On the podium, British conductor Alpesh Chauhan
The twenty-four-year-old pianist, overall winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition at only 13 years old, takes on the romantic Piano Concerto by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. Completing the programme are the virtuoso passages of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, one of the most beloved works of the twentieth century. Conducting is Alpesh Chauhan, winner of the Abbiati Prize and already appreciated in Verona.
GRIEG CONCERTO
Chauhan, Malofeev
Friday 22 May 8:00 pm
Saturday 23 May 5:00 pm
Teatro Filarmonico di Verona
The spring symphonic season of Fondazione Arena at the Teatro Filarmonico concludes with an unmissable double event: on Friday 22 May at 8 pm, repeated on Saturday 23 May at 5 pm, a programme combining the great nineteenth-century romantic concerto for piano and orchestra, such as Grieg’s, with the twentieth-century reinterpretation of older forms in the Hungarian Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. On the podium of the Arena Orchestra is Alpesh Chauhan, while the anticipated soloist is the young Alexander Malofeev, a “fulfilled promise” of the piano world and among today’s most sought-after performers on the international stage.
Not only because of the shared key of A minor, the classical three-part structure and the romantic spirit, it is impossible not to think of Schumann’s model when listening to the popular Piano Concerto op. 16 by Edvard Grieg. Norway’s most important composer (1843–1907), in a sense a pioneer of national musical identity, composed some of the most celebrated works in all of “classical” music (such as the rich incidental music for Ibsen’s Peer Gynt). He dedicated many of his works to the piano, the most successful of which remains the Concerto, scheduled at the Teatro Filarmonico on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 May, a youthful work yet already fully accomplished, influenced by the great romantic models, including innovators such as Liszt and Wagner, yet in perfect balance between form, melodic invention and Norwegian folk rhythms. Grieg revised the orchestration shortly before his death, when the Concerto had already become enormously popular, a cornerstone of every pianist’s repertoire.
In the history of the Arena artistic ensembles, it has been performed only twice (1979 and 2007) and this weekend returns to Verona thanks to the award-winning Alexander Malofeev (winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition at a very young age in 2014), making his debut with the Fondazione Arena Orchestra, after collaborating with today’s leading conductors in the world’s most prestigious venues, from Philadelphia to Santa Cecilia, from La Scala to Lucerne and Verbier. Returning to the podium is British conductor Alpesh Chauhan, already a guest at symphonic concerts at the Filarmonico between 2017 and 2019, Best Conductor at the 2022 Abbiati Awards of the Italian Critics, currently Music Director of the Birmingham Opera Company, Principal Guest Conductor in Düsseldorf and Principal Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.
Completing the programme is a great twentieth-century classic and a different interpretation of the term “concerto”: Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, written in 1943 by Béla Bartók (1881–1945) on commission from conductor Koussevitzky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A work in five movements, in which the two outer movements, in austere sonata form, frame two lighter “intermezzi” and the broad central Elegy. Between references to the Baroque musical world, folk rhythms and melodic fragments of Hungarian tradition, the work is an intense journey “from the severity of the first movement and the mournful death song of the third to the affirmation of life in the last” – as the composer himself declared –. “The title of this orchestral work resembling a symphony is explained by the tendency to treat each individual instrument of the orchestra in a concertante or soloistic manner” in a dazzling virtuosity that challenges even the most cohesive orchestras.
Seats are still available for the double event on Friday 22 May at 8 pm and Saturday 23 May at 5 pm at the Teatro Filarmonico: on the day of the concert, the last box seats can also be purchased. After the intense programme of the 103rd Arena di Verona Opera Festival, which will engage the Arena artistic and technical ensembles in the Amphitheatre from 5 June to 12 September, the 2026 artistic season resumes at the Teatro Filarmonico in October. The final double-date symphonic concert will take place in November, featuring works by Hummel and Brahms performed by Jurowski and Nakarjakov. Single tickets and subscriptions at the link https://www.arena.it/it/teatro-filarmonico, at the Arena Box Offices and through the Vivaticket sales network.
BCC Veneta is the main sponsor of the 2026 Artistic Season of Fondazione Arena at the Teatro Filarmonico.
EVENTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND STUDENTS. The 2026 programme of Arena Young also includes the entire Symphonic Season. Every Friday, for the series Andiamo a teatro, schools can attend concerts at reduced prices by taking part in the Prelude one hour before the performance: an introduction to the plot, characters and language of musical theatre curated by Fondazione Arena. Info and bookings: Education, Culture and Training Office scuola@arenadiverona.it – tel. 0458051933
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