In September 2026 Thomas Adès made a long-awaited Italian debut as a pianist at the Bartolomeo Cristofori Piano Festival and the Festival Pianistico Internazionale di Brescia e Bergamo, performing his Vesper and Blanca Variations. His appearance at the festival in Padua saw him awarded the Cristofori d’Oro prize, which honours national and international pianists in celebration of Padua’s heritage as the birthplace of the piano. Alongside his music, he performed works by Haydn, Janáček, Stravinsky, Bartók and Beethoven.
The performances included the Italian premiere of Vesper (for Henry Purcell) – a 6-minute work whose piano transcription was commissioned by Wigmore Hall to mark its 125th Anniversary, where Adès is Artist in Residence. Based on Purcell’s Evening Hymn, the piece is a chaconne spinning out increasingly ornate variations, before a majestic conclusion. Originally the final movement of Adès’ solo guitar suite Forgotten Dances, the piece was created for Sean Shibe; the guitarist borrowed its title for his Gramophone Award-nominated album, which includes the world premiere recording of the piece, as well as Adès’ Habanera from 'The Exterminating Angel'.
The composer also performed the 2015 Blanca Variations – five explorations of the Ladino folk tune Lavaba la blanca niña, which appear in the first Act of The Exterminating Angel, performed by Blanca Delgado, a famous pianist among the party guests unable to leave; Adès has described the tune as displaying “an unassuageable harmonic structure very typical of longing and bereavement”.
Adès has given several premieres from the piano in recent months. In August he appeared with violist Sascha Bota at the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival to debut the Flower Variations for viola and piano; the 9-minute piece takes its theme from ‘Les champs’, the third movement of Adès’ cello work Lieux retrouvés. Earlier in the month he returned to La Jolla Music Society for the world premiere of a revised version of his 1997 Concerto Conciso, conducted by Stephanie Childress. The new version of the 10-minute piece for piano and chamber ensemble, commissioned by the Lucerne Festival and La Jolla, has seen the piano part expanded and its orchestration tweaked.
Adès reprised his Italian programmes for London audiences at Wigmore Hall on 26 September; he returns to the Hall in March 2027 with members of the Hallé Orchestra – where he is Principal Guest Conductor – for their Wigmore debut alongside Sean Shibe and Anna Dennis, where they perform Francisco Coll’s guitar concerto Turia, as well as two works based on Adès’ opera The Tempest: the Suite for violin and piano and the Court Studies (for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano); Adès will also perform the Manuel de Falla Harpsichord Concerto on the piano.