Donizetti Theatre Foundation/Bergamo Jazz
and the International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo
present three extraordinary concerts at Lazzaretto
in collaboration with the City of Bergamo

Friday, June 27, 2025
Mare Nostrum: Paolo Fresu/Richard Galliano/Jan Lundgren

Thursday, July 10, 2025
Kurt Elling & The Yellowjackets
“Celebrate Weather Report”

Friday, July 18, 2025
Herbie Hancock

Three extraordinary concerts of international scope will be added to the usual Bergamo Jazz program, whose 46th edition is now just around the corner, from March 20 to 23. Three special events organized as part of the summer initiative promoted at Lazzaretto by the Culture Department of the City of Bergamo: Fondazione Teatro Donizetti and Bergamo Jazz, together with the International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo, will bring artists of extraordinary prestige and international fame to Lazzaretto, reflecting the long tradition of two of the city’s most important music festivals.

It begins on Friday, June 27 with an authentic supertrio that bears the “name of Mare Nostrum and which aligns the trumpet of Paolo Fresu, one of the most beloved Italian jazz musicians, even” abroad, the masterful accordion of the Frenchman Richard Galliano and the piano of the Swede Jan Lundgren, a refined specialist of the 88 keys. Then, on Thursday, July 10, it will be the turn of American Kurt Elling and compatriots Yellowjackets: the summit meeting between today’s leading exponent of jazz singing declined to the male voice and one of the most iconic bands in the jazz-fusion area will take place in the groove of the music of Weather Report, a legendary lineup that left behind indelible traces of adventurous and innovative music.

Finally, on Friday, July 18, Bergamo will see the return, more than 50 years after his previous concert in the city, of Herbie Hancock, one of the brightest stars in the world musical firmament. The U.S. pianist, who will perform at Lazzaretto leading a band whose lineup will be announced soon, will hold a long European tour next summer, starting July 1 from Hamburg and ending July 31 in Madrid. There will be five Italian stops: Perugia, Rome, Udine, Bergamo and Naples.

Tickets for the three concerts will be available at the Donizetti Theater Box Office and online on the VivaTicket circuit starting Tuesday, March 25, 2025 at 4 p.m. Subscribers to the Bergamo Jazz Festival 2025 and the Piano Festival 2025 will be able to take advantage of the right of first refusal on reservations during the Bergamo Jazz Festival 2025, that is, from March 20 to March 23, again from 4 to 8 p.m. by coming directly to the Ticket Office (Piazza Cavour, 15).

All concerts will begin at 9:30 PM.

For Sergio Gandi, Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Bergamo, “it is an honor to have the opportunity to host artists of this value, whose presence further enriches the wide range of proposals of the fifth edition of Lazzaretto Estate, giving it an international imprint. Heartfelt thanks are therefore due to the Donizetti Theater Foundation for adhering to the Municipal Administration’s invitation to be a participant in this important initiative of the Municipality. The thanks should of course be extended to the International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo, another excellence of our territory, partner of the three concerts tagged Bergamo Jazz at Lazzaretto.”

“The Donizetti Theatre Foundation is proud to be able to present three Bergamo Jazz events that go beyond the canonical period in which the Festival takes place,” comments George Berta, President of the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti, “the value of the musicians we will host at Lazzaretto is unquestionable, and we are delighted to have at our side the International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo, to which our Foundation is deeply linked by a natural and lasting partnership. It is undeniable that events of this kind require considerable organizational and economic effort. Our thanks therefore go to the City of Bergamo and to all those who will support us in this new adventure.”

“When the Donizetti Foundation asked us if we would like to participate in the production of the Bergamo Jazz summer concerts at Lazzaretto, we accepted immediately, because the invitation came from an institution that we esteem and with which we are in total agreement of intent and which, like the Piano Festival represents a city excellence, but we also did it thinking about how to remember, in the 25th year of his passing, our first president, Filippo Siebaneck, who in the 1970s also gave an extraordinary impulse to the growth of jazz in Bergamo through the unforgettable International Jazz Festivals,” says Daniela Gennaro Guadalupi, President of the Brescia and Bergamo International Piano Festival.

“Bergamo Jazz is a brand that is now widely recognized in Italy and abroad: the 46th edition of the Festival is just around the corner and promises to be sold out in several of its events, starting with the three evenings at the Donizetti, the main concert venue. This year we wanted, as we have already done in the past, to broaden our temporal horizons: the concerts at Lazzaretto correspond to a vision that in broadening the perspectives of the Festival aims to involve an even wider audience, while maintaining the artistic quality that distinguishes us,” observes Massimo Boffelli, General Director of the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti.