Founded a quarter of a century ago, Anima Mundi reaches its 25th edition this year, reaffirming its status as one of Europe’s most important sacred music festivals. The 2026 edition, scheduled from 8 September to 2 October, is organised by the Opera della Primaziale Pisana with the support of Fondazione Pisa and under the patronage of the Municipality of Pisa and the Department of Culture and Education.
The festival features seven concerts to be held between the Cathedral and the Camposanto in Piazza del Duomo in Pisa: four major symphonic-choral events in the former, alternating with three equally distinguished evenings in the latter, featuring renowned performers and ensembles, in a programme that once again bridges the gap between the most illustrious past and contemporary expressions.
All concerts will begin at 9.00 pm.
PROGRAMME
The opening takes place on Tuesday 8 September. The customary welcome from the brass section from the top of the Tower, followed by a grand return: Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Anima Mundi’s artistic director throughout its long and glorious history, leading the ensembles he founded and conducted, The Constellation Choir & Orchestra, and featuring sopranos Hilary Cronin and Samantha Cobb and tenor Jonathan Hanley, will perform two cornerstones of nineteenth-century German spirituality: Johannes Brahms’ sublime *Schicksalslied* (Song of Destiny) and Felix Mendelssohn’s rousing Second Symphony, *Lobgesang* (Song of Praise).
A world apart at Camposanto on Monday 14 September: Lucas Debargue, a French pianist as seasoned and whimsical as few others, will frame his own arrangement – entitled ‘Variations and Finale’ – based on ‘Summertime’, the most famous of the songs written by George Gershwin for his opera *Porgy and Bess*, between the Decadentism of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s highly demanding Second Sonata and the volcanic inventiveness of Modest Mussorgsky’s *Pictures at an Exhibition*.
Back at the Cathedral on Thursday 17 September for the most unusual event of Anima Mundi 2026: Franco Battiato’s *Messa Arcaica*. Though he passed away five years ago, Battiato remains one of the most complex and multifaceted figures to have shaped the music of our time, capable of achieving immense success as a singer-songwriter whilst always maintaining an almost ascetic spiritual commitment and refusing to be pigeonholed by any label. This monumental work for soloists, choir and orchestra, first performed in Assisi in 1993 and revived several times since, reinterprets the ancient text of the Latin Mass in a timeless style that is deeply evocative and intensely introspective. It will be performed by the renowned voices of Simone Cristicchi and Amara, alongside mezzo-soprano Mara Gaudenzi, whilst the conducting will be entrusted to Guido Corti, at the helm of the Canova Orchestra – a fascinating, dynamic ensemble founded in Lombardy over ten years ago – and the Turin Chamber Choir. Rounding off the programme, under the baton of Carlo Guaitoli, will be the ‘Canzoni Mistiche’, which have often provided a counterpoint to Battiato’s creative output.
For the eighteenth time, Anima Mundi has launched the International Sacred Composition Competition, which has already given rise to many new works, seventeen of which have been honoured with a performance during the festival. This year’s set text was the *Canticle of the Creatures* by St Francis of Assisi, the eighth centenary of whose birth will be celebrated a few days later; the prescribed instrumentation is a string orchestra with a narrator. On Monday 21 September at the Camposanto, the winner, Pietro Dinetto – a composer and pianist who has devoted a significant part of his output to sacred music and the spiritual dimension of sound – will see his Canticle performed to open the concert with the Orchestra Cremona Antiqua, conducted by Antonio Greco. The narrator will be Massimiliano Pegorini, an actor highly regarded in both theatre and cinema. The programme is rounded off with works by Antonio Vivaldi, Alessandro Scarlatti and Francesco Geminiani – among the finest of the great Italian Baroque – performed by soloists Gian Andrea Guerra on violin and Nicola Brovelli on cello.
Meanwhile, on 24 September, the Cathedral will host the return of one of the greatest masterpieces inspired by the Bible: Joseph Haydn’s *The Creation*, a triumph of an Enlightenment-era and enthusiastic vision of Christianity. It will be conducted by one of today’s most illustrious figures, James Conlon, who has long been at the helm of the Paris Opera and the Los Angeles Opera, as well as leading major orchestras such as the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the RAI National Orchestra: joining him will be internationally renowned soloists, including soprano Sydney Mancasola, tenor Daniel Behle, Markus Werba (bass), and some of the finest ensembles in our region, active and highly regarded abroad as well: the ‘Guido Chigi Saracini’ Choir of Siena Cathedral, conducted by Lorenzo Donati, and the Orchestra della Toscana, of which Conlon is honorary conductor.
Drawing inspiration from the ancient prayer to Mary, *Salve Regina*, and almost entirely from a modernity that is at times avant-garde and at times more directly rooted in tradition, the programme of the Estonian National Male Choir, conducted by Mikk Üleoja and featuring the renowned Italian organist Marco Arlotti. On Tuesday 29 September at Camposanto, we shall hear works by Estonian composers: Arvo Pärt, the greatest among them and one of the most frequently performed living composers in the world; two other contemporaries, Riho Esko Maimets and Tõnis Kaumann; and Rudolf Tobias, who, at the turn of the 20th century, was the father of Estonian music. Gabriel Fauré’s famous ‘Pavane’, transcribed for organ and performed by Marco Arlotti, dates from the same historical period, whilst the work commissioned in 2018 by the Estonian Choir from the Italian composer Giovanni Bonato brings us back to the present.
The finale is a grand affair, and it falls to Anima Mundi’s artistic director, Trevor Pinnock, who – mirroring the opening concert – turns to Brahms with the most magnificent and beloved of his symphonic-choral works, the German Requiem, set to biblical texts: he will perform it again on Friday 2 October in the Cathedral, conducting exceptional soloists such as soprano Regula Mühlemann and bass Krešimir Stražanac, alongside some of Germany’s most renowned radio ensembles: the Norddeutscher Rundfunk Radiophilharmonie Orchestra from Hanover and two combined choirs, the Norddeutscher Rundfunk Vokalensemble from Hamburg and the Westdeutscher Rundfunkchor from Cologne
Music and solidarity: a tangible commitment
Once again this year, the Anima Mundi audience will have the opportunity to support, through voluntary donations, a number of solidarity and welfare projects in the local area. The initiative is organised by the Diocesan Caritas of Pisa and represents a simple gesture that transforms the experience of listening to great music into an act of solidarity, reinforcing the message that artistic beauty is never an end in itself, but can become a means of healing and fostering responsibility towards others.
Ticket Office
Free admission with a ticket.
Tickets for all scheduled concerts can be booked exclusively online from 11:00 on 2 September 2026.
Info www.opapisa.it
