Filippo Gorini
The winner of this year’s Franco Buitoni Award is Italian pianist Filippo Gorini in recognition of his Sonata for 7 Cities project which will be launched in 2025. The Award will be officially presented by Ilaria Borletti Buitoni at a special concert in association with Società del Quartetto in Milan on 22 June.
The press release says: « For some time, Gorini has been seeking a more meaningful and fulfilling way to share his music-making with audiences and communities. Over the course of a year (2025-26) he will spend a month in each of seven far-flung cities around the world as well as his home country. Each residency will have at its core a significant recital and concerto performance with the city’s symphony orchestra at the beginning and end of the period, while the rest of his time will be devoted to creative local partnerships with free educational, mentoring and philanthropic activity as well as performances in more unusual venues beyond the city centre for audiences who are not regular concert-goers for a variety of reasons. »
Gorini says of this deliberate slowing down: « The idea is simple: instead of constantly travelling from one concert venue to another, I want to focus on each city for a full month and offer as much as I can to the local community in that time, with the aim of leaving a deeper impression than would be possible with a single performance. I hope to build ongoing relationships and create a new way of developing my career for the long term future in this way with many more cities around the world. »
Discussions are already well underway on the continents of Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America, with confirmed commitments so far in Milan, Vancouver and Vienna. Gorini will also premiere a specially commissioned piano sonata in each city: Federico Gardella, Stefano Gervasoni, Oscar Jockel and Michelle Agnes Magalhaes have pledged their support so far.
