Rousse Philharmonic Orchestra

The symphony orchestra of Ruse dates from 2 March 1919, when it was formed within the city's opera society, and became a state ensemble in 1948 under Konstantin Iliev, whose severity of purpose left a mark on it. It became one of the centres of Bulgarian symphonic playing outside the capital and helped bring the March Music Days festival into being — still the most important annual event in the Danube city's calendar; it also founded the Winter Music Evenings and played at the Sienese music weeks between 1984 and 1991. National premieres have been a tradition: works of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Kancheli, Hindemith, Richard Strauss, Parashkev Hadzhiev and Konstantin Iliev were first heard in Ruse, and in 1958 Shostakovich himself came for the composer's premiere of his Second Piano Concerto. Kurt Masur, Carlo Zecchi, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Carlo Maria Giulini and Valery Gergiev have conducted it, and Sviatoslav Richter, Rudolf Kerer, David Oistrakh, Leonid Kogan, Ruggiero Ricci, Vladimir Spivakov, Franco Petracchi, Robert Cohen, Franco Ferrara, Carlo Maria Giulini, Yuri Bashmet, Katia Ricciarelli and Boris Belkin have appeared with it. In 1999 it was incorporated into State Opera Rousse, and it has since led a double existence there, in the pit for the opera and ballet repertoire and on stage for symphonic programmes.