I Virtuosi Italiani is an Italian chamber orchestra founded in Verona in 1989. The ensemble has recorded over a hundred albums, and among the artists who have performed with them we can mention Franco Battiato, Goran Bregović, Uri Caine, Chick Corea, Paolo Fresu, Ludovico Einaudi, and Antonella Ruggiero. Among the soloists who often perform with the Virtuosi there is also the flautist Massimo Mercelli, with whom the Italians will play at the National Forum of Music. He is known to the Polish audience primarily as a performer of Krzysztof Penderecki’s works, with whom he was friends.

Mercelli has a special bond with Michael Nyman, an English composer associated with the minimal music movement. On 19 May 2019, at the La Scala, at a concert celebrating his sixtieth birthday, the flautist premiered, next to Penderecki’s work, the Second Concerto for flute and strings by Nyman, dedicated to Mercelli. Now it will sound in Wrocław. Another English piece featured in the programme will be the cheerful Simple Symphony by one of the greatest composers of the 20th century – Benjamin Britten.

The concert will open with the performance of Ottorino Respighi’s four-movement Suite No. 3  “Antiche danze et arie”, in which this outstanding symphonist was inspired by early music – lute works of the 16th and 17th centuries. It includes arrangements of anonymous works as well as works by Jean-Baptiste Besard and Ludovico Roncalli. Then we will hear two works by the legendary composer of film music, author of music to The Godfather or Federico Fellini’s films – Nino Rota. The Concerto for Strings, written when he was had his heyday in Italy after the premiere of 8 ½, in many respects resembles his works composed for cinema. Film music will be represented by a suite of dances from Il Gattopardo directed by Luchino Visconti.