Anima Mea Festival 18th Ed. - Musiche Mondi Memorie - 2026

It often happens, whilst we are working at Anima Mea, that we ask ourselves what the point of this endeavour is: music begins as a ‘private indulgence’, but if it is created here, it must also meet the expectations of others, becoming, to some extent, a manifestation of ‘public virtue’. So, today more than ever, it seems necessary to ask ourselves what is the point of engaging with music whilst the world is burning, due to wars and climate change - both caused by humans. The easiest answer would be: it serves no purpose; it changes nothing in the fate of the victims; it brings no relief to lives under threat; it alleviates no suffering. And yet, in performing the works of art we present to you, our ambition is to share a different vision of humanity, an inexhaustible hope for freedom or, as Johann Mattheson put it, an expansion of the soul (Der vollkommene Cappelmeister, 1739).

This year’s festival features twelve different productions across 21 concerts; it involves 50 musicians from 10 different regions of Europe, North and South America. They are artists from different generations, some well-known and others less so to international audiences, all engaged in wide-ranging musical projects that are never predictable, but always the result of research and vision. Bringing these acts to you for this 18th edition of Anima Mea has required a great deal of work, and we’d like to give you an idea of the scale of it in figures: to put together the approximately 30 hours of live music that we’ll be sharing with you, it took over 3,000 hours of planning and organisation carried out by a team that increasingly consists of young professionals; and we’re particularly proud of this. As always, the final say is yours – enjoy the music.