Celebrated conductor Michail Jurowski, a representative of the famous dynasty of conductors and a special guest of the Belgrade Philharmonic, will conduct once again at Kolarac Hall on April 12, at 8:00 p.m. The audience will have the unique opportunity to hear Dmitri Shostakovich’s last symphony in his interpretation — in addition to being the composer’s friend, Jurowski assisted in the premiere of this masterpiece.

With his 15th and last symphony, Shostakovich returned to music riddles. Here the composer recaps his life, using not only quotes from his earlier works, but also from other authors, but always in altered versions. The symphony begins and ends in a toy store, with the sounds of bells that go back to the beginning, and with which Shostakovich spells out his “farewell.”

“Premieres of Shostakovich’s works were an important social event, and the 15th Symphony was conducted by his son Maxim. I was in charge of the percussion section, and at the first rehearsals we used chairs and tables instead of percussion instruments, which the Ministry of Culture ordered specially from Switzerland. I helped in arranging the musicians that were supposed to play them, because this section was extremely important to Shostakovich. He never interpreted his music, but he revealed to me why he used a melody from Rossini’s William Tell in the 1st movement. The window of his childhood house in Leningrad at the time looked at a park where some terrible brass music was always playing the same tune, which is why he hated it. Recalling his childhood, this quote was found in the symphony as an apology to Rossini, realizing that it was not his fault,” Maestro Jurowski said.

The concert opens with “Night on Bald Mountain” by Mussorgsky, whose effectiveness has ensured the composition a significant place in popular culture, and this music can be heard from Disney’s “Fantasia” to the “Simpsons” series. A flicker between these two monumental pieces of music is “Scarlattiana”, a concerto for piano and orchestra by Alfredo Casella, featuring soloist Sofja Gülbadamova, whose repertoire includes often forgotten or rarely played pieces. One hundred standing tickets will be on sale at the Kolarac Box office from 7:00 p.m., one hour before the concert.