The XXXI Ivan Sollertinsky International Music Festival has opened in Vitebsk

The XXXI Ivan Sollertinsky International Music Festival has opened in Vitebsk. Its first event, a concert by teachers and students of the Vitebsk State Musical College named after the famous native, took place this afternoon. In the evening, in the foyer of the regional philharmonic, students of the Design and Fashion Department of the Vitebsk State Technological University exhibited posters inspired by classical music. Hence the exhibition's title – "Playing Classics". The organizers claim there is nothing surprising in such a synthesis of arts. After all, Sollertinsky, born in Vitebsk in the early 20th century, a graduate of Petrograd University and the artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonic, was an "art critic of broad profile". It is not for nothing that he is considered a prominent Soviet music and theater critic, and a literary scholar.

The festival opening took place after the vernissage. The Russian string quartet "Academy of Chamber Music" took to the stage of the philharmonic. Its artists, members of the MusicAeterna ensemble, highly sought after in the field of authentic performance, successfully perform on the most prestigious concert stages, including London's Wigmore Hall and the Berlin Philharmonic. The ensemble's leader, Igor Bobovich, who, incidentally, was born in 1976 in the Belarusian city of Shchuchin, said that the "Academy of Chamber Music" visited Vitebsk for the first time:

— At the age of four, my father, a military man, took me from Belarus. Only in 2007 did I visit Minsk, where I attended the Days of German Music. We know about Vitebsk that Chagall and Malevich worked there. We know that Sollertinsky, to whom the festival is dedicated, was very close friends with Dmitry Shostakovich. This, of course, explains the inclusion of Shostakovich's Quartet No. 10 in our Vitebsk concert. For us, as for any person connected with the Soviet Union, with Soviet art, his music is close and dear.

In addition to Shostakovich, during the opening, the "academicians" performed works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giacomo Puccini.

The festival in Vitebsk will last for two weeks. On December tenth, the audience of the regional center will have a meeting with the State Chamber Orchestra and the student choir of the Belarusian Academy of Music, who will perform Martin Palmeri's "Misa de Buenos Aires". In this grand work, created under the impression of Astor Piazzolla's music, the audience will hear the bandoneon — an instrument that has become an integral part of Argentine tango.

On December fifteenth, a traditional participant of the festival, I. Sollertinsky's ensemble of soloists "Classic-Avant-garde", will present the program "Giya Kancheli. Portrait with Friends". This Georgian composer needs no special introduction. It is enough to say that he wrote the music for such popular films as "Mimino" and "Kin-dza-dza!". As for the friendship mentioned in the title, it connected Kancheli with like-minded composers – Alfred Schnittke, Arvo Pärt, and Valentin Silvestrov. Their music, by the way, will also be performed at the concert.

The festival will close on December 18. On this evening, Belarusian pianist Andrey Ponochevny, who currently teaches at Dallas University, will perform accompanied by the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Belarus. According to the artistic director of the Vitebsk Regional Philharmonic, Vladimir Babariko, the conductor's podium will be occupied by the orchestra's artistic director, Alexander Anisimov:

— It should be noted that Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Dmitry Shostakovich's last symphony, which will be presented to the audience during the closing ceremony, will be performed in Vitebsk for the first time. It is not surprising that tickets for the concert have already been sold out.

The organizers assure that the Sollertinsky Festival has stood the test of time. It successfully promotes academic musical art, develops traditions, revives forgotten and discovers new names, involving young performers and listeners in cultural life.