The tragic and premature death of Master Ezio Bosso has shocked the world, and the whole Verona Arena Foundation has received the news with dismay and immense pain.
The Superintendent and Artistic Director, Cecilia Gasdia, a great friend of the Maestro, recalled: “โฆ I will always be by your side with these words full of strength and friendship. Ezio greeted me in the last video call of two days ago.
โI know, Ezio, you kept telling me all the time … as you always told me that you wanted to move to Verona, the city you loved and where many of us love you. To you, beautiful soul, who kidnapped us with your intelligence, your sweetness, your lucidity, your candor, your courage … infinite.
โMy friend, you leave me in an ocean of pain but you are here with me … by my side.โ
The whole city is mourning the disappearance of the Master Ezio Bosso. Verona, in fact, loved him very much and on August 11, he celebrated his debut in the Arena with a memorable evening dedicated to the Carmina Burana.
Maestro Bosso, on the occasion of his debut in the Arena, said: โIt is the stage of the dreams of music lovers and lovers. Going to the Arena is a gesture full of emotion, which makes the history of who was there and is not just going to a concert if you think about it.
โAn even more evident responsibility for me, even if I always put it in everything I do. And many Veronese people know it because I said it without hesitation in my past concerts, it is the dream of my mom (and also my dad). Because Verona protected them in the war years. What I said was – if there were no Verona, I would not have been born.
โAnd the Arena was the first gift that I could give together with my sister to our parents: to make her go back to the Arena where she hadn’t been able to go in those years. And this I think says it all, especially the gratitude that there will be in every gesture of director – and not only – that you will see in those days.
โSo, thanks again, Verona, and thanks Mrs. Gasdia, and thanks Arena. Because Verona is the Arena and the Arena is Verona. It’s true, when musicians make each other, they fulfill timeless desires.”
Then just before greeting the crowd in raptures in a packed Arena, it was Master Ezio Bosso himself who announced his return to the Arenian stage at the helm of the IX Symphony of Beethoven, and the event was certainly one of the most awaited events by the public.
The indelible memory will remain, in all those who have known him, of an artist of extraordinary intelligence and refinement and a man of profound humanity.
Master Bosso had brain surgery to remove a cancer in 2011 and was also diagnosed with neurodegenaritive disease, an autoimmune syndrome. He continued to play, then in September of 2019 the disease worsened and compromised the use of his hands. He said, “I can’t play anymore, stop asking me.” Bosso was 48 years old when he passed.