Anghel Gheorghe

Intimate musical performances, recorded live at the desk of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen.

A former world-famous conductor of the Bolshoï orchestra, known as "The Maëstro", Andreï Filipov had seen his career publicly broken by Leonid Brezhnev for hiring Jewish musicians and now works cleaning the concert hall where he once directed. One day, he intercepts an official invitation from the prestigious Théâtre du Châtelet. Through a series of mad antics, he reunites his old orchestra, now composed of old alcoholic musicians, and flies to perform in Paris and complete the Tchaikovsky concerto interrupted 30 years earlier. For the concerto, he engages a young violin soloist with whom he has an unexpected connection.

A revealing exploration of Chaplin’s Romani heritage constructed from intimate interviews, film extracts, home movies and contributions from renowned contemporary Romani artists.

Unable to accept that his glory days are long gone, the "king of the violin" Caliu has to reinvent himself. Swinging between the challenges of the present and the memories of his international career, for Caliu only the music has remained the same.

They come from Romanian villages and the slums of Skopje: legendary Roma orchestras from Eastern Europe, singers and brass bands from the Balkans.