About this edition

At the end of January, the Belgrade audience will be expecting the seventh edition of the international Rossi Fest, in which, from January 27 to February 1, 2024, various programs with excellent foreign and domestic artists will be held in the Jewish Cultural Center, Dorćol Platz and the Jewish Hall municipality of Belgrade.

At the traditional and unique concert for this festival, Portraits and Memories, the composition Three Psalms for string orchestra by the composer David Cheski will be premiered on Saturday, January 27 in Dorćol Platz, starting at 7 p.m.

Portraits and Remembrance represent one of the main program elements of Rossi Fest, which annually commemorates World Holocaust Remembrance Day. In addition to the Jewish Chamber Orchestra with soloists Mina Mendelsohn, Ladislav Mezei and conductor Radan Jovanović, ballet soloists Tamara Pjević and Jakša Filipovac will perform under the direction of Ana Grigorović and set design by Dunja Kostić.

On Sunday, January 28, starting at 8 p.m., the Baroque Feast concert will be held in the Festive Hall of the Jewish Municipality of Belgrade in cooperation with the Belgrade Baroque Academy. This unique musical event will be presented to us by prestigious members of the New Trinity Baroque ensemble, soloists – lecturers, and students of the Belgrade Baroque Academy. The audience will have the opportunity to enjoy some of the most beautiful works of baroque composers, which will be performed on historically authentic instruments.

As part of the festival program is also dedicated to scientific research, Dr. Ivan Ćurković, a distinguished musicologist of the Academy of Music from Zagreb, will hold a lecture on the topic of War and Peace in the oratorios of George Frideric Handel, at the Jewish Cultural Center (Jevrejska 16), on January 30, starting at 18 hours.

In the same space starting at 8 pm, the famous opera by Georg Friedrich Handel, Rinaldo will be performed for the first time in Belgrade.

This masterpiece is Handel’s first opera for a London audience and represents one of the pinnacles of Baroque musical dramaturgy and art. Directed by Sreten Manojlović, under the direction of Predrag Gosta, the audience will be presented by the New Trinity Baroque ensemble and international soloists, participants of the Belgrade Baroque Academy, with a baroque orchestra on historical instruments.

On the occasion of the 145th anniversary of the founding of the Baruch Brothers Choir, the oldest Jewish choir in the world, the final evening of Rosi Fest will be a concert called Erev Shel Shoshanim(Evening of Roses), after the name of one of the most beautiful love songs in the Hebrew language. The program is unique because it is inspired by love poetry written in the Hebrew language and by composers of Jewish origin. In the Atrium of the National Museum, on February 1 at 8 p.m., together with the Baruch Brothers Choir, the Jewish Chamber Orchestra, soloists Stefan Hadžić and Marko Živković, will perform under the direction of the festival director, Stefan Zekić.

The festival was organized in cooperation with the Belgrade Baroque Academy with the support of the Jewish Community of Belgrade and the Embassy of Israel.