Around the Music Festival

Kylian Mbappé, the professional soccer player who wowed at the FIFA World Cup Qatar, will make his concert debut as a flutist in Spain next year. Mbappé studied flute from the age of 6 to 11 at the conservatory in Bondy, near Paris, France.

To summarize reports in Spain, the concert will take place on September 27 next year. He will perform with the Madrid State Orchestra at the National Music Hall in Madrid, and he himself has requested that Mozart’s Flute Concerto No. 1 be included in the program.

Mbappé was born in 1998 and is 24 years old. He plays for “Paris Saint-Germain” and made his full debut for France at the 2017 tournament in Russia when he was 18 years old. Since then, he has been known as a world-class striker and was the top scorer with a hat trick in the final of this tournament against Argentina.

The concert was organized by the Prime Minister of the Autonomous Region of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ajuso. The prime minister is close to Florentino Perez, president of Spain’s “Real Madrid. Perez is aiming to invite Mbappe to join his team in June 2025 after his contract with Paris Saint-Germain expires, and the concert is seen as a stepping stone toward that goal.

Mbappe has been practicing the flute in his free time, and during negotiations with the prime minister in Paris before the World Cup, he confided that he would devote himself to classical music when his athletic career was over.

Photo：Le Parisien　/　Arnaud Journois