This month, Francesco appears in Rome for his debut with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in three concerts on 4, 5 and 6 May. He joins the orchestra and conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla to perform Mozart Piano Concerto No.27, K.595.
The concerts are a reunion for Francesco and Mirga, who performed the same concerto together with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra last season. The concert was well received by the British press, with the Times praising Francesco’s “playful, assertive, intelligent music-making” and “bone-china clarity”, while the Daily Telegraph wrote that Francesco’s performance was “well beyond the ordinary”:
“He gave a wonderfully winning performance of Mozart’s final piano concerto, faithful to the work’s dewdrop lucidity and gentle nostalgia, but irradiated with joie de vivre too, in the way he garlanded Mozart’s notes with stylish and witty flourishes of his own. The orchestra and Gražinytė-Tyla were alert to his every move.”
Daily Telegraph