George Edelma, artistic director

George Edelman is the founder and Artistic Director of the ELBA ISOLA MUSICALE D’EUROPA Festival. A trained pianist and highly regarded teacher, he has built an international career as the creator and artistic director of prestigious music festivals, distinguishing himself through his ability to develop cultural projects of great value.

Born in what was then the Soviet Union, he moved to New York in 1978, where he pursued an intensive career both as a chamber musician and as a teacher of piano and chamber music at the Mannes College of Music and New York University (NYU).

In 1986, he was appointed Director of the New York University Summer School in Italy. During this experience, he taught the history of chamber music and held a seminar devoted to the German Lied for a large group of NYU students. With the aim of expanding the project, he invited several distinguished fellow musicians to perform alongside the students in a series of chamber concerts. What began as a spontaneous initiative achieved extraordinary success and became the starting point for the foundation, in 1987, of the Camerino International Chamber Music Festival. After overseeing its growth for eight years, helping it achieve significant results and solid international recognition, Edelman stepped down as artistic director, confident that he had created a well-established event, which has continued its activities without interruption to this day.

In 1988, he decided to return to Europe and settled in Paris, which became the centre of his work as an organiser of musical events. In 1997, together with the renowned violist Yuri Bashmet, he founded the ELBA ISOLA MUSICALE D’EUROPA Festival, making a decisive contribution to the restoration of the Teatro dei Vigilanti in Portoferraio, a historic theatre commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814. After remaining unused for almost fifty years, the theatre reopened to the public for the Festival's inaugural concert in October 1997. Since then, every year, the Isola d'Elba has welcomed musicians, chamber orchestras and internationally renowned ensembles who gather in this extraordinary setting to share their art.

In 2004, George Edelman was appointed Artistic Director of Ferrara Musica by its founder and president, Claudio Abbado. Over the following ten years, he ensured the Maestro's regular presence in Ferrara until his death in January 2014, regularly overseeing the production of his concerts and operas performed with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra Mozart. He remained at the helm of Ferrara Musica until 2018, for a total of fourteen years, during which he promoted numerous initiatives that made a significant contribution to broadening and renewing the audience for classical music.

During his tenure, he introduced innovative subscription options, enhanced the city's historical heritage through productions devoted to early and Baroque music, perfectly integrated with Ferrara's architecture and musical tradition, and encouraged interaction between different audiences through a contemporary music concert series hosted at the Jazz Club. At the same time, he created new educational events, such as the popular Sunday morning concerts and the series of meetings combining poetry and music, "Ferrara Sintonie", helping to bring new enthusiasts closer to classical music. As part of his work in Ferrara, he also directed the Gustav Mahler International Youth Academy, dedicated to the training of young orchestral musicians.

A tireless cultural promoter and organiser of musical events, George Edelman now devotes his experience and creativity to the ELBA ISOLA MUSICALE D’EUROPA Festival, continuing to develop its artistic and international project.