Orchestra della Toscana – Kolja Blacher

About the Event

Experience classical music like never before in this astonishing performance of masterworks by Mendelssohn and Beethoven at Florence's remarkable Teatro Verdi.

The German musician Kolja Blacher is a man of few words. He expresses himself by picking up his Guarneri del Gesù violin of 1730. And he works hard with the orchestra, when he is also called to be the conductor. He is returning to the ORT after 10 years, precisely in this double role, which in recent times – now that he has turned sixty – is the one he likes the most. He, son of the famous composer Boris Blacher, a pupil of Dorothy DeLay’s Juilliard School in New York (who taught a host of great violinists, including Itzhak Perlman), was first violin of the Berlin Philharmonic in the 1990s, at the time of Claudio Abbado. Together with the ORT, he is working on a pillar of the violin repertoire, Beethoven’s Concerto Op .61. A score dated 1806 which, at the time, the public did not appreciate. It was brought into circulation several years after the composer’s death, around the middle of the century, with the interpretation of the great violinist Joseph Joachim under the direction of Felix Mendelssohn and then that of Robert Schumann. The other work on the programme, Symphony No. 3 called the “Scottish”, belongs to Mendelssohn.

Teatro Verdi

Teatro Verdi is a theatre established in Florence in 1854, in the street 'Via Giuseppe Verdi'. Originally known as Teatro Pagliano, the theatre became one of the most popular theatres in Tuscany, welcoming all kinds of shows, as well as classical performances with the arrival of the Orchestra della Toscana. The largest Italian‐style theatre in the region, the building was inaugurated with a performance of Verdi´s masterpiece, 'Rigoletto', and was renamed in 1901 to honour the composer. Home to the Orchestra della Toscana, the theatre now combines a vivid classical program with theatre seasons, as well as rock and pop performances..