Vittorio Monti (1868 - 1922) was an Italian composer, violinist, mandolinist and conductor, best known today for his virtuoso composition “Czardas”. He wrote the piece in 1904 and was inspired by Hungarian folk music. Vittorio Monti was born in Naples, where he also studied violin and composition at the prestigious Naples Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella. At the age of eighteen he went to Paris, where he became a renowned musician and later the conductor of the famous Lamoureux Orchestra. In Paris he composed a number of ballets and operettas, such as ‘Noël de Pierrot’, and also made a significant contribution to the development of the mandolin, for which he wrote the book ‘Petite Méthode pour Mandoline’. Today, his other works stand in the shadow of “Czardas”, which granted him immortality and became a favourite repertoire of violinists and other musicians all over the world.

Milan Ort (*1955) is a Czech violinist, violist, composer and arranger. He studied violin at the Prague Conservatory. He has been a member of many folk ensembles and chamber orchestras, where he has performed in the first violin or viola section. His compositions focus on the stylization of folk music from all parts of the world, especially from Moravia, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. In his other work, he writes small solo or chamber pieces, mainly for children and students of art and music schools.