Gioachino Rossini Magpie" ("La gazza ladra") features one of his most celebrated overtures. Rossini moved to Paris in 1824 where he began to set French librettos to music. His last opera was the epic "William Tell" ("Guillaume Tell"), featuring its iconic overture which helped to usher in grand opera in France. A tendency for inspired, song-like melodies is evident throughout his scores, which earned him the nickname "the Italian Mozart." He was a rapid and prolific composer, quoted as joking, "Give me the laundress' bill and I will even set that to music." He also earned the nickname "Signor Crescendo" for his
Rocco Filippini concerts at the La Scala theatre in Milan, where he has played in recitals with cello and piano, performed the György Ligeti concerto with the Scala Philarmonic Orchestra, and taken part in many chamber music concerts, often in association with Maurizio Pollini, with whom he has performed concert programmes for several jears in Rome, London, Tokyo and New York, and at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro and Salzburg festivals. At the Salzburg Festival in 2002 he premièred Fabio Vacchi’s "Tre Veglie", with Anna Caterina Antonacci, accompanied by the Orchestre de Paris conducted by Ivan Fischer. In 1979 he was