Dubai Opera welcomes two internationally-acclaimed Italian maestros on Sunday, 25th June, as flautist Tommaso Benciolini, the winner of the 2017 New York Respighi Prize, and pianist Leonora Armellini, a multiple prize winner at the International Piano Competition ‘F. Chopin’ and recipient of the Galileo 2000 Golden Pentagram award, present a concert entitled From Italy with Love as part of the VIP Classical initiative, organised by SAMIT Event Group. SAMIT organises and produces over 150 events every year, including various leading productions of classical music festivals and ballet performances across the MENA region, and with this new project the company is offering audiences the opportunity to experience a different, more intimate type of concert, including close contact with the artists themselves in a private and exclusive atmosphere.

The evening opens with Antonín Dvořák’s Sonatina, a four-movement work initially released in 1893 for violin and piano, with the duo presenting an arrangement for flute and piano. Next comes Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestücke (‘Fantastic Pieces’), a famous 1849 work initially intended for clarinet and piano but has been arranged for many instruments since its release. Finally, following a brief interval, the two artists close the evening with César Franck’s beloved Sonata in A major, widely regarded as one of the most exemplary masterpieces created in the sonata form.