Around the Music Festival

The City of Bologna has announced that the Piazza Santo Stefano, next to the Basilica of Santo Stefano in the center of the city, will be renamed Piazza Claudio Abbado. This is to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the maestro conductor’s death. Abbado was born in Milan and died on January 20, 2014 at the age of 80 in Bologna, where he had lived since 2004.

Abbado was one of the leading conductors of the postwar era, and was a renowned opera house and orchestra conductor: La Scala in Milan (1968-1986), the London Symphony Orchestra (1979-1983), the Vienna State Opera (1986-1991), and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (1990-2002). In 2013, he was awarded the title of Senator for Life by the then President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano.

In 2000, he succumbed to stomach cancer but returned to the scene after undergoing surgery; in 2003, he was appointed to the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, and in 2004, he founded the Mozart Orchestra in Bologna, which he directed until his death with a group of young musicians.

The square, located near Abbado’s former residence and a favorite place of his, was the site of his funeral on the 21st and 22nd, where thousands of people gathered to pay their respects.

PHOTO：Bologna Today