Orchestra della Toscana – Umberto Clerici & Marc Bouchkov

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 last time the ORT played with Umberto Clerici, during the last decade, he was a cellist. Now we find him as principal conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, in Australia, and by now devoted almost more to the podium than to the instrument with which he achieved all possible goals. Now, giving himself over to conducting allows him to understand music from another perspective. In fact, he says, “When you play the cello you’re sitting in front of the audience, even if the soloist doesn’t pay too much attention to who’s in front of him/her, because it’s as if he/she were thinking only about the music inside him/herself. Instead, when you’re conducting, you find yourself in front of an orchestra playing for you, and it is as if the conductor were part of the audience, although he/she has more control over the musical situation“. Together with the ORT, he offers the most graceful (and loveliest) of Beethoven’s symphonies, the 8th, and a big hit from the violin repertoire, Mendelssohn’s Concerto Op. 64. The soloist is Marc Bouchkov, a Belgian of Russian‐Ukrainian origins, who in 2018 the English magazine “Gramophone” included among the musicians to keep an eye on.

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..