MOSCOW, August 6. The XIX International Festival «Stars on Baikal» by Denis Matsuev will be held in Irkutsk from September 2 to 18; 25 concerts will be held at its main venues — the Irkutsk Regional Musical Theater named after N.M. Zagursky and the Irkutsk Regional Philharmonic, the theater's press service reports.
«This year's festival will be unprecedented in scale, as it will last 17 days, and our concert venues will be very actively involved in this incredible flow of festival creative bubbling. There will be 25 concerts in total, which will include a variety of programs: chamber, solo, with orchestra, choral, theatrical,» the words of the festival's artistic director, People's Artist of Russia Denis Matsuev, are quoted on the musical theater's website.
This year, eight ensembles will take part in the festival concerts. In particular, these are the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan and Alexander Sladkovsky, the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra with Dmitry Jurowski and Ivan Nikiforchin, the Stradivarius Ensemble of the Mariinsky Theatre under the direction of Lorenz Nasturic-Herschcowici, the Virtuosi of Moscow with Vladimir Spivakov, the Soloists of Moscow and Yuri Bashmet, and others.
Among the soloists, in particular, are Khibla Gerzmava, Nikolai Lugansky, Sergei Skorokhodov, Pavel Milyukov, Alexander Ramm, Borislav Strulev, Narek Akhnazaryan, Vadim Rudenko, Leonid Zhelezny, as well as laureates of the Grand Piano Competition held in Moscow this summer Kirill Rogovoy, Lev Bakirov, Lucas Schish (Switzerland), Vladimir Rublev, Varvara Zarudneva, Elisey Mysin, the message says.
The Questa Musica ensemble with conductor Philipp Chizhevsky will come to Irkutsk for the first time. This group will present a program that will include works by Henry Purcell and four concertos for violin and orchestra «The Seasons» by Antonio Vivaldi. Yuri Bashmet and Igor Kostolevsky will also present their project – a performance-concert “When Love Came to You”, staged based on the story “Blue and Green” by Yuri Kazakov and directed by Marina Brusnikina.
In addition, Vladimir Spivakov together with Denis Matsuev will present two programs: the first is a performance of the Piano Concerto by A. Schnittke with the “Moscow Virtuosi”, and the second, on the day of the festival’s end, is a Sonata Evening.
“I am proud that I managed to convince maestro Vladimir Spivakov to return to the stage as a violinist. We will play a solo concert consisting of a sonata by Johannes Brahms, a sonata by Franck and a huge number of encore pieces that we are preparing especially for “Stars on Baikal” and to which maestro Spivakov himself will make the author’s introductions,” Matsuev noted.
International Festival «Stars on Baikal» is supported by the Baikal Export Center (BBQ Baikal Export Center). The founders of the festival are the government of the Irkutsk region, the regional ministry of culture and the Irkutsk regional musical theater named after N.M. Zagursky.