Beginning this Friday, the inaugural Festival Respighi Bologna – founded by Melbourne-born Maurizio Scardovi – will fill the Italian city with the sounds of one of its favourite sons, the composer and violinist Ottorino Respighi.

Festival openers, Lily and Mischa Maisky. Photo © Andrej Grilc

Born in 1879, Respighi was a violinist with today’s Mariinsky Theatre (formerly the Russian Imperial Theatre) and studied under Rimsky-Korsakov. Combining the colours of Russian orchestration with Richard Strauss’s harmonic language, he went on to compose a broad catalogue of instrumental, choral and organ works, as well as operas and ballets.

His arrangements of Rossini’s music were used for the ballet La Boutique fantasque, presented in 1919 by Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. It ranks as one of Respighi’s most popular works, along with his ‘Roman Trilogy’ of tone poems Pini di Roma, Fontane di Roma and Feste Romane. Puccini was counted among his admirers, and he remains one of the most popular and frequently performed Italian composers of the 20th century.

The festival is the brainchild of Melbourne-born Maurizio Scardovi, who graduated from the Liceo Augusto Righi in Bologna and performed as an opera singer...