The International Chamber Music Festival will bring together performers from eight countries in Polotsk

The International Festival of Ancient and Modern Chamber Music will open on April 5 in Polotsk, BELTA was informed at the St. Sophia Cathedral, on the basis of which the event will be held.

The festival, dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the concert hall, will open for the twenty-sixth time and will last for a month and a half. Music lovers will have meetings with outstanding performers from Belarus, Russia, Lithuania, Estonia, France, Israel, Argentina, and Cuba. Following the established tradition, the festival will be opened by ensembles of the National State Television and Radio Company of the Republic of Belarus: the symphony orchestra and the academic choir. Leading Lithuanian soloists Raminta Vaicekauskaite, Algirdas Janutas, and People's Artist of Lithuania Vladimir Prudnikov will also take part in the concert. The oratorio "The Seasons," which is a brilliant culmination of Joseph Haydn's work, will be performed. The renowned Estonian conductor Erki Pehk will be at the conductor's stand.

One of Russia's best chamber ensembles, the Glinka State String Quartet, and Yuri Medyanik, a unique multi-instrumentalist musician who plays the violin, bayan, and bandoneon (a national Argentine instrument) incomparably, will present an unusual program "Musicians Smile" on April 10: Vitali's "Chaconne" and the theme from the film "Schindler's List" by J. Williams, waltzes by F. Kreisler and Tango "Por una cabeza" by C. Gardel, "Tired Sun" by E. Petersburgsky and "Oblivion" by A. Piazzolla, and much more.

The April meetings will introduce listeners to the work of the Smolensk guitar ensemble "Amicus," the Boys' Chapel of the Republican Music College at the Belarusian State Academy of Music, the performance of the outstanding pianist, Honored Artist of Belarus Yuri Gildyuk, and the famous violinist, Honored Artist of Russia Stepan Yakovich. The French organist Pierre Gjivov will perform a spectacular program of works by prominent composers of French music of the 17th-20th centuries.

Concerts in May promise to be no less vibrant. Thus, on May 6, a concert will be held as part of the World Organ Day, dedicated to the 850th anniversary of Notre Dame de Paris, which will be celebrated on this day in various halls and churches around the world. Ksenia Pogorelaya, organist of the Sophia Cathedral Concert Hall, and the "Europa-Center" Chamber Orchestra conducted by Rail Sadykov, in honor of this event, will perform masterpieces of organ classics, music by composers who served as organists at Notre Dame de Paris in different years, and the best compositions for organ and chamber orchestra. May 10 is dedicated to jazz and musicals. The program of the renowned Israeli ensemble "Bellamiya" will feature soulful spiritual melodies, music by George Gershwin, as well as excerpts from popular Broadway musicals.

An evening of romance performed by soloists and the G. Shirma State Choral Chapel of the Republic of Belarus will gather fans of vocal music on May 16, and the next day a gala concert will feature three leading soloists of the world opera stage: David Gvinianidze, Sergey Plyusnin, and Yuri Zaltsman. Their performance will be a tribute to the talent of the great artist and performer Muslim Magomayev.

The festival's final chord – the concert "Latin American Etudes" – will sound on May 18, International Museum Day. On this evening, the brilliant Cuban virtuoso pianist Luis Lugo, accompanied by the Argentine singer Jessica Milner, will present classic examples of popular Latin American melodies and Argentine tango in the Sophia Cathedral. The unique combination of Afro-Cuban charisma, elemental power, and European academism has made Luis Lugo one of the most brilliant and original Latin American pianists.