Founder of two major Russian symphony orchestras, in Volgograd and Ulyanovsk, Edward Serov was a runner-up in the first Herbert von Karajan conducting competition.

After a term as assistant to Yevgeny Mravinsky at the Leningrad Philharmonic, he became chief conductor of the city’s chamber orchestra, from 1974 to 1985.

Abroad, Serov was music director in Odense, Denmark, in the early 1990s.

He made more than 50 commercial recordings and particularly championed the music of Boris Tchaikovsky and Boris Tischenko.

The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra was formed in 1946 by German musicians who had been ruthlessly expelled from liberated Czechoslovakia (most were members of the German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague).

This weekend, Bamberg instals a new chief conductor, Jakub Hrusa.

He’s Czech.

Cheers.

Cosi updated to the First World War. Brilliant art.

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