Thomas Fiorini and Robert Groslot Present First Belgian Concerto for Bass Guitar and Orchestra

Thomas Fiorini and Robert Groslot Present First Belgian Concerto for Bass Guitar and Orchestra…

Brussels Philharmonic American-Italian bassist, Thomas Fiorini realizes his dream: a bass guitar concerto. The vinyl will be out on May 6th, but today you can already listen to the full album via your favourite streaming platform. Listen here: orcd.co/bassguitarconcerto_fiorini

In 2019 Fiorini, in cooperation with The Brussels Philharmonic, commissioned Belgian composer Robert Groslot to write a concerto for the bass guitar. Recorded in May of 2021, the concerto stands as a towering achievement. In the capable hands of Fiorini, Groslot’s composition springs to life. Equally at home on the double bass and the bass guitar, and effortlessly able to cross musical boundaries, Fiorini is uniquely suited for this composition. His mission is to present the bass guitar as a legitimate solo instrument within the genre of contemporary classical music. Given his love of the bass guitar and dedication to the composition, his dream of bringing the bass guitar into the classical concert hall has been strikingly realized.

Groslot’s Concerto for Bass Guitar and Orchestra is a masterful dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra on the level of historic masterworks. Groslot composes for this unconventional instrument as though it had centuries of tradition behind it. He pushes the soloist to the heights of technical virtuosity but never at the expense of musicality. Groslot is not the first composer to write for the bass guitar in contemporary music. However, given his boundless talents as a world-class pianist and composer, he delivers a composition for the bass guitar that will serve as the cornerstone of an evolving solo repertoire for the instrument.