Bollani reinvents Neapolitan song with Servillo, Ebbanesis and Sepe

Stefano Bollani will be the opening speaker for the 32nd edition of Maggio dei Monumenti, promoted and funded by the City of Naples. The event is scheduled for Sunday, May 31st, at 9:00 PM at the Rotonda Diaz (gates open at 8:00 PM, admission is free).

Joining the pianist and composer on stage are three special guests: Peppe Servillo, the female duo Ebbanesis, and saxophonist Daniele Sepe. Together, they will paint a sonic portrait of Naples, a city of layers and ever-changing sounds, through some of the most beloved pieces of the Neapolitan tradition, reinterpreted through the universal language of jazz and improvisation.

Culture as a strategic infrastructure

"Stefano Bollani's concert," declared Sergio Locoratolo, coordinator of the City's cultural policies, "defines Maggio dei Monumenti 2026 in the highest and most coherent way, confirming a cultural policy that the Manfredi administration has transformed into a strategic infrastructure for the city." According to Locoratolo, the festival is no longer just a historic showcase, but "the true Festival of Culture of Naples, where heritage, contemporary production, and popular participation become one vision of the city."

The decision to entrust the concert to Bollani as part of the "Naples City of Music" project therefore takes on a programmatic value: culture as a language that strengthens the city's international reputation and generates a new urban centrality.

The vitality of Neapolitan song

Ferdinando Tozzi, the mayor's delegate for the music and audiovisual industry, agrees: "The meeting between Bollani and local talents like Servillo, the Ebbanesis, and Daniele Sepe demonstrates the exceptional contemporaneity of Neapolitan song, capable of dialoguing with jazz without ceasing to be itself. Naples City of Music," he adds, "not only celebrates the past, but is alive, open to cross-fertilization, and projected toward the future of creativity."

The impossible synthesis of a world-city

"I'm building a structure that revolves around Naples," Bollani says, "but within Naples there's everything: I'm trying to create a synthesis with three guests who are truly Neapolitan." The pianist fondly mentions Ebbanesis ("two extraordinary friends and artists"), Daniele Sepe ("a fabulous musician, a Frank Zappa enthusiast like me"), and Peppe Servillo, "almost a true Neapolitan because he's from Caserta," with whom he has already collaborated and whom he reunites with "enormous pleasure."

A concert-event that promises to be much more than a tribute: a journey into the imagination of a city that continues to reinvent itself, note after note.