Italian pianist Marco Fumo presents a fascinating and essential programme charting the evolution of African-American styles in piano music, embracing works from a cross-section of genres and eras, from Baroque to Brazilian choro, from ragtime to stride piano, from neoclassicism to tango, from impressionism to jazz. A versatile musician, for over a decade Fumo collaborated professionally with Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone.

Marco Fumo has always aimed to embrace good music of any genre without distinction, interested more in its innate qualities than in categorisation. In this refreshing and original recital, Fumo interprets a kaleidoscopic spectrum of pieces, tracing their intricate, sometimes subtle interconnections through the lens of Afro-American cultural history. We hear works by Scarlatti and Stravinsky, Debussy and Copland, Scott Joplin and Fats Waller, accompanied by thoughtful booklet notes explaining the musical backgrounds to, and links between, these pieces.

Marco Fumo is considered to be one of the best interpreters of Afro-American piano repertoire. After an early career in classical music, Marco studied early ragtime, analysing the origins of and influences on early ragtime piano. The result is a repertoire that embraces a century of literature from the Cuban dances of Saumell, Gottschalk and Cervantes up through Gershwin and Duke Ellington, including composers of ragtime and stride piano such as Joplin, Scott, Lamb, Matthews, Morton, Waller, Johnson, Jackson, Smith, and others.