Ancient and modern chamber music will be heard today in Polotsk

The International Festival of Ancient and Modern Chamber Music opens today in Polotsk, the Sofia Cathedral, where the event will be held, informed BELTA.

The festival, dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the concert hall, will be held for the 26th time and will last for a month and a half. Music lovers can look forward to 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.

One of Russia's best chamber ensembles, the M.I. 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" to the audience on April 10.

The April meetings will introduce listeners to the works 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 Zivoh will perform a spectacular program of compositions by prominent representatives of French music of the 17th-20th centuries.

The May concerts promise to be no less spectacular. 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. Ksenia Pogorelaya, organist of the Sofia Cathedral concert hall, and the "Europe-Center" Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Rail Sadykov will perform masterpieces of organ classics, music by composers who served as organists of Notre Dame de Paris in different years, and the best compositions for organ and chamber orchestra in honor of this event. May 10 is dedicated to jazz and musicals.

The Romance Evening performed by soloists and the G. Shirma State Choral Chapel of the Republic of Belarus will bring together 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 be heard on May 18, on 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 St. Sophia Cathedral. The unique combination of Afro-Cuban charisma, elemental power, and European academism has turned Luis Lugo into one of the most prominent and original Latin American pianists.