Naturalmente Pianoforte – Concerts in Poppi

A widespread festival in the heart of the Casentino

Naturalmente Pianoforte is one of Tuscany's most original music festivals: it does not take place in a single concert hall but spreads across the entire Casentino valley in the province of Arezzo, involving ten municipalities, fifty venues, and over 350 volunteers. Each year, the event attracts more than 130 pianists for approximately 240 hours of music, held in squares, churches, castles, parish churches, and along the trails of the Foreste Casentinesi National Park. The Municipality of Poppi, with its monumental Castello dei Conti Guidi and the villages of the Moggiona district, is one of the most evocative stops on this musical journey through the province of Arezzo, in Tuscany.

The 2026 edition: "No Genre Boundaries"

For 2026, the festival runs from July 11th to 19th with the theme "No Genre Boundaries": a program that transcends barriers between musical genres and opens up to theater, literature, photography, comics, contemporary art, trekking, and food culture. The artistic direction is entrusted to Enzo Gentile, who maintains a principle dear to the event: every year features different artists, never repeated from previous editions. Most events are free to attend.

Events in Poppi

In Poppi, the heart of the 2026 program beats around the Castello dei Conti Guidi and the squares of the historic center:

• Tuesday, July 14th, 9:00 PM: In Piazza Jacopo Bordoni, the "Meetings – Words" section opens with a dialogue between Don Luigi Verdi and Andrea Scanzi.
• Wednesday, July 15th, 9:30 PM: In Piazza del Castello, a concert by the duo Rita Marcotulli and Luciano De Leo, blending jazz and singer-songwriter atmospheres.

Events within the municipal territory continue in the valley's hamlets, in line with the festival's itinerant nature, bringing music to the most secluded villages and the park's trails.

An international program

Alongside the Poppi events, the 2026 edition features prominent names throughout the valley: the opening by singer-songwriter Renzo Rubino, pianist Olga Moniakh with the OIDA Orchestra of Arezzo performing Beethoven, the soul-jazz voice of Sarah Jane Morris, Simona Molinari, Elio with Alberto Tafuri, and the sunrise concert by Gloria Campaner and Paolo Ruffini at the Pieve di Romena. The festival complements the concerts with piano masterclasses (classical, jazz, and for young pianists), workshops for children, literary meetings, and the famous Carovana, a multi-day musical trek through the park's forests.

Why it's worth it

Naturalmente Pianoforte is much more than a concert series: it is a way to discover the Casentino and Poppi through music, walking from one village to another, and listening to the piano resonate in places steeped in history and nature. For visitors, it is the perfect opportunity to combine slow tourism, landscape, and culture in one of Tuscany's most fascinating valleys.