Many people wonder what the future of classical music will be, but few know what the answer is. Indeed, the problem is quite a pressing and, if you will, dramatic one.
Gianandrea Gavazzeni is one person who was able to get the best out of every moment, on an ongoing basis.

He was one of the few conductors who stood out in one of the most distinctive periods of the 20th century, the first fifty years, with his elegance, culture and charm.
Born in Bergamo in 1909, he died in 2000; he was a pupil of Pizzetti and was extremely active at La Scala and in the major opera theaters. Gavazzeni typified the man rich in sensitivity and creative intelligence made to serve music, understood as a point of connection with all other disciplines.
The eclecticism that distinguished him has now become, alas, a gift on the verge of extinction. So being able to live in contact with this person helped us not to forget how much culture was seen as a moment of coming together rather than of isolation. In our times, hell-bent on specialization, it is an exceptional phenomenon to be able to write, conduct, think and compose different things.
Gavazzeni was all this. An excellent conductor, he drew the utmost from the colleagues he directed, simultaneously respecting the style and taste of the composers interpreted. Even the world of musicology was for him a very dear space, and his books, articles and essays are one of the finest testimonies to his genius and his foresight He succeeded in grasping the essence of musical problems, leaving a slender guiding theme permeated with an irony contained within the limits of good taste.
Every book has remained as a spiritual testament that compares men and things, with a unique eye for his own experiences. We must add to all these gifts a facility for dialogue, since the wealth of terms and construction of thought enraptured all who talked to him. In short, a charismatic figure that we all respected. I personally was able to know him and play under his direction with the La Scala Orchestra, and few conductors have made conducting so human, broad and discursive.
Physically, he exactly mirrored the figure of the homo-musiciens of the previous century. Elegant, with white hair and fiery eyes, he managed to involve effortlessly the attention of all. Undoubtedly one of the last effectual men that our century gave us.
His presence in the hallowed hallways of La Scala made this world, with its already long history, even more fascinating. In short, he was the symbol of music understood as a cultural and spiritual message, and Gavazzeni was its perfect ambassador.