One forest, Four Seasons
The “Ferruccio Busoni” Chamber Orchestra, a historic ensemble founded in 1965 by Aldo Belli, is one of the first chamber orchestras to have been established in Italy in the post-war period and the oldest in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region. It is recognised as a “regional institution of interest”, and on the occasion of its 50th anniversary the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region published a volume on the Busoni Orchestra entitled “Oggi come mezzo secolo fa”, highlighting its role in promoting the Region’s image at an international level. In addition to support from the FVG Region, the orchestra’s artistic activity is funded by the Municipality of Trieste and by the Ministry of Culture through the FUS. In 2021 the Busoni Orchestra was awarded the “Sigillo Trecentesco” by the Municipality of Trieste to mark its 55th anniversary.
It is made up of renowned instrumentalists of established reputation, who carry forward the musical tradition of the Trio di Trieste and Quartetto Italiano, of whom they were pupils, alongside young talents who have distinguished themselves in national and international competitions. In 2005 and 2010, to celebrate the orchestra’s 40th and 45th anniversaries, several concerts were held with the extraordinary participation of violinist Salvatore Accardo. The celebratory concert for the 50th anniversary featured violinist Domenico Nordio and, recorded live, was released by the magazine Amadeus. The 55th-anniversary concert was held at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste with violinist Massimo Quarta, winner of the Paganini Prize, and resulted in a CD of works by Viotti and Cherubini, released by Brilliant Classics.
The orchestra has attracted public and critical attention with hundreds of concerts in Austria, France, Slovenia, Croatia, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Tunisia, Mexico, and Italy, performing with outstanding soloists. In 2013 it opened, as Italy’s representative, the International Silver Lyre Festival organised by the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society, and in 2021 it undertook a tour in Mexico organised by CIDIM, giving two concerts in the state of Coahuila as Italy’s cultural tribute to the Bicentenary of Mexican Independence. On 26 February 2022 it inaugurated the celebrations of the Tartini Year, proclaimed by the Republic of Slovenia for the 330th anniversary of Giuseppe Tartini’s birth, with a concert featuring violinist Salvatore Accardo as guest soloist.
The orchestra has premiered many works, some of them dedicated to the ensemble. It has recorded 30 CDs for labels such as Velut Luna, Concerto Classics, Brilliant Classics, Warner Classics, Movimento Classical, Bongiovanni, Dynamic, Suonare News, and Amadeus, presenting world-premiere recordings of important composers including Andrea Luchesi, Giuseppe Tartini, Giulio Meneghini, Alessandro Rolla, and others, which have received prestigious recognition from leading specialist journals. The Busoni Orchestra conceived and is the main performer of the International Morning Concerts at the Revoltella Museum in Trieste, a chamber music series that will reach its 25th edition in 2025. The orchestra has carried out many tours in Italy and abroad organised by CIDIM, the most recent in October 2022 with violinist Giuseppe Gibboni, winner of the 2021 Paganini Prize, which was a great success and visited ten Italian cities.
It collaborates regularly with prestigious institutions such as the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition in Bolzano, the Niccolò Paganini International Prize in Genoa, the Walter Stauffer Academy of Advanced Studies in Cremona, the Città di Vittorio Veneto International Competition, IMK – Society for the Promotion of International Music and Culture, and others. The magazine Amadeus has repeatedly released CDs recorded by the Busoni Orchestra, featuring the artists on its cover: in 2016 a CD of music by Alessandro Rolla with Simonide Braconi in world-premiere recordings, in 2018 a CD with two concertos by Giuseppe Tartini in world-premiere recordings with Laura Marzadori, in 2022 a CD of Mozart’s piano concertos with pianist Giuseppe Albanese, and in 2024 a disc of music by L. van Beethoven with the Trio di Parma. In December 2020 and January 2021, Suonare News released two CDs with the complete works for violin and orchestra by W. A. Mozart, featuring outstanding young talents from the Stauffer Academy.
In 2024 Brilliant Classics released a CD recorded by the Busoni Orchestra with violinist Massimo Quarta (works by Viotti and Cherubini), a Mozart disc for Dynamic with Alessandro Milani and Luca Ranieri, respectively concertmaster and principal viola of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, and a recording of music by Giovanni Bottesini with Francesco De Angelis and Francesco Siragusa, respectively concertmaster and principal double bass of the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala in Milan. The orchestra’s 60th anniversary was recently celebrated with two concerts held at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste and at Palazzo Morando in Milan, where the FVG Region presented its cultural excellences, with Laura Marzadori, concertmaster of the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra, as soloist. For the 60th anniversary, composers Marco Podda, Raffaele Cacciola, and Alessandro Grego dedicated new works to the Busoni Orchestra. Great success also greeted the guitar concerto written and dedicated by Giovanni Allevi to guitarist Giulio Tampalini and the Ferruccio Busoni Orchestra, premiered in Trieste in November 2025. In October 2025 the Busoni Orchestra performed in the Grosser Saal of the Mozarteum in Salzburg and is scheduled to return there on 21 December.
Massimo Belli began studying the violin with his father and continued with Bruno Polli. He graduated with top marks and distinction under Renato Zanettovich at the “Benedetto Marcello” Conservatory in Venice. He attended advanced courses in Fiesole with the Trio di Trieste and Piero Farulli, and at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena with Henryk Szeryng. For two years he studied with Salvatore Accardo at the “W. Stauffer” Academy of Advanced Studies in Cremona and at the International Chamber Music School of the Trio di Trieste in Duino. Prize-winner in numerous national and international competitions, he made his debut at sixteen at the Teatro Politeama Rossetti in Trieste for the Società dei Concerti; since then he has appeared as soloist and conductor in major halls throughout Europe, the former Soviet Union, Turkey, Mexico, and South America.
He has performed the principal violin concertos with leading orchestras and has served as concertmaster of the Italian Youth Orchestra, the Busoni Orchestra, the Haydn Philharmonia, and as both concertmaster and director of the Virtuosi dell’Ensemble di Venezia. The Triestine composer Giulio Viozzi dedicated to him the piece “Tema variato” for solo violin, published by Pizzicato. He has recorded for Italian, Soviet, German, Yugoslav, Brazilian, and Austrian radio and television, and has made 35 CDs for labels such as Sipario Dischi, Nuova Era, Tirreno Editoriale di Lugano, Amadeus, Suonare News, Warner Classics, Concerto Classics, Brilliant Classics, and Dynamic; he currently records for Concerto Classics and Brilliant Classics. He studied conducting with Aldo Belli and Julian Kovatchev and, since 2000, has been the conductor of the Nuova Orchestra da Camera “Ferruccio Busoni”. He is professor of violin at the Trieste Conservatory and has taught at the United World College of the Adriatic, the summer courses in Solighetto, the International Courses in Cividale del Friuli, and in masterclasses at institutions such as the Royal Conservatory of Murcia, the Mannheim Hochschule, the Tallinn Academy, the Belarusian Academy in Minsk, and the Sarajevo Music Academy.
In 2002, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the competition, he conducted the “40th Anniversary Orchestra”, made up of past prize-winners of the Città di Vittorio Veneto National Violin Competition. More recently he has conducted I Cameristi del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Euro Sinfonietta Wien, the Calabria Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra of Szolnok at the Aba – Novak Agora Cultural Centre in Szolnok, at the Operetta Theatre in Budapest, and in the Great Hall of the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the North Czech Philharmonic Orchestra at the Smetana Hall in Prague, and the Romanian Philharmonic Orchestra at the Alba Festival. In 2024 he again conducted the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra of Szolnok at the Liszt Hall in Budapest and at the Ehrbar Hall in Vienna, and in October the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra at the Smetana Hall in Prague.
Lucio Degani, born in Udine, began studying the violin at the age of twelve and graduated with highest honours from the “L. Cherubini” Conservatory in Florence under Maestro Renato Zanettovich, later refining his skills with Dario De Rosa and Piero Farulli. Prize-winner in several national and international competitions, he embarked on an intense concert career in Italy and abroad both as soloist and in chamber ensembles. As concertmaster and solo violinist he has appeared in some of the world’s leading theatres and concert halls, including the Lincoln Center in New York, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Schauspielhaus in Berlin, La Scala in Milan, the Opéra and Salle Pleyel in Paris, and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory Hall in Moscow.
He has performed with distinguished conductors and soloists such as Salvatore Accardo, Pierre Amoyal, Yuri Bashmet, James Galway, Lorin Maazel, Peter Maag, Riccardo Muti, Itzhak Perlman, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Mstislav Rostropovich, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Christian Thielemann, Uto Ughi, and Narciso Yepes. He has made radio and television recordings as a soloist for BBC, RAI, RAI Trade, ORF, Radio France, and has recorded extensively for labels including Erato, RCA, Philips, EMI, and Warner Fonit. For Bongiovanni he has recorded a CD devoted to American music in arrangements by Jascha Heifetz and the complete works for violin and piano by Antonio Freschi, a pupil of Bazzini. The press and critics have described him as a violinist of great charm and charisma, capable of reaching outstanding levels of virtuosity and expressiveness. Lucio Degani plays a Don Nicola Amati violin of 1734 and is currently professor of violin at the “Jacopo Tomadini” Conservatory in Udine.
