Few know of the pre-war Philharmonic in the building located at Karl Marx, 17. Shockingly before the Great Patriotic War, Minsk was the jazz center of the Soviet Union, as one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century lived and worked in the city - Eddie Rosner, the German jazz performer, trumpeter, arranger, and conductor.  For seven years he led the first and unfortunately last of Belarus’ state jazz orchestras - the finest swing big band of 1940s USSR, by European standards. Rosner was the first jazz instrumentalist in Soviet history to be awarded the honorary title of Honored Artist of the Republic.Eddie Rosner's first concert in Minsk was held in October 1939, and within a year, he led the Belarusian Republican Jazz Orchestra. Minsk marveled, relishing "Rosner's jazz." His orchestra played in liberated Minsk in 1944, as well as for Stalin in Sochi in 1945. With such uproarious success, rumors spread that Eddie played a trumpet made of solid gold.However in 1946 jazz was banned in the Soviet Union, and Eddie was forced to leave first for Moscow and then for Germany. Emigration resulted in a ban on the name and on the mention of the individual’s successes. Therefore, Eddie Rosner never took his rightful place among major cultural figures, and today is known only to a small circle of jazz fans.