I Virtuosi Italiani: Da Venezia a Shanghai

About the Event

In this highly‐anticipated concert, hear the mellifluous sounds of classical music by Ottorino Respighi, Antonio Vivaldi, Astor Piazzolla, Gioachino Rossini, Alberto Ginastera and Michel Legrand at Verona's treasured and world‐renowned Teatro Ristori.
The sensitivity of violinist Michael Guttman and cellist Jing Zhao will enliven the evening entitled From Venice to Shanghai.

Michael Guttman is a violinist, conductor and artistic director of music festivals around the world, including Pietrasanta in Concerto, Crans Montana Classics, Le Printemps du Violon in Paris, and Made in Polin in Warsaw. He is also the musical director of the Napa Valley Symphony and the Belgian Chamber Orchestra. In 2014 he won the prestigious “Scopus” prize from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for his musical career, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for his album dedicated to Hindemith, recorded with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Guttman is the youngest violinist ever to be admitted to the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, which he did when he was only 10 years old. His debut at the age of 14, with Jean Pierre Rampal, allowed him to meet his future mentor, Isaac Stern, who suggested he continue his studies at the Juilliard School in New York, where he perfected his skills with Dorothy Delay and the Juilliard Quartet. He studied with the legendary Russian violinist Boris Goldstein, in honor of whom he organized, together with the Maestro himself and Zakhar Bron, a violin competition in Bern, Switzerland in 2014. As Belgium's leading violinist, he was chosen to represent his country at the Universal Exposition in Seville in 1992. Concerts at the Lincoln Center, the Barbican Hall, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Salle Pleyel in Paris and in Asia were followed by invitations to prestigious festivals such as the Martha Argerich Project, the Flanders Festival, Jurij Bashmet's festival on Elba, the Folles Journées in Nantes and Tokyo, and the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad. He participated in the world premiere of Philip Glass' double concerto for violin and cello with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in the United States and in Asia, with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, conducted in both cases by the great Dutch maestro Jaap Van Zweden. He has toured with, among others, Martha Argerich, Nestor Marconi, Nigel Kennedy, Boris Berezovsky and Vadim Repin. After collaborating with composers and conductors such as Lukas Foss and Noam Sheriff, he developed a career as a conductor, which led him, in 2017, to perform in the most prestigious concert halls in Spain with the legendary pianist Ivo Pogorelich. His encounter with Astor Piazzolla encouraged him to explore different styles of tango, and in 2017 he composed the first double concerto for violin and bandoneon with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Juan Pablo Jofre, the famous Argentinian bandoneon player.