In 2019 I was already working on my personal online education brand with the guys from the Italian startup Made in Orchestra, when we got hit by Covid and the lockdown: almost the whole world was stuck, and we suddenly found ourselves confined in our homes, without more concerts or lessons. So I took the phone and called some of the Artists I had invited to the Festival that I organize every year in Grado, and with whom I was most familiar, and I offered them to collaborate on Facebook live streaming sessions, during which we could continue to teach piccolo to all students who wanted to connect. The success of this initiative gave me the idea to create the International Piccolo Flute Academy.

We are lucky because the piccolo world is not that big, and it is not based on competition but on collaboration and cooperation. Only such an environment could originate the International Piccolo Flute Academy, the first brand built by a group of international Artists who have joined forces, all together, to allow as many flutists as possible to access the most studied methods of piccolo, to allow them to audition, develop their sound and build their musical career and life.

And the fact that there are so many different teachers teaching the same topics is the real richness of this project: any player can delve into the different methods and find the one that works best for them, and they can do it without having to take a plane to reach the teacher’s location. This is an extraordinary thing, which paves the way for a new concept of approaching the study of music.

Nicola Mazzanti
Artistic director