On March 18-20, Ryazan will host the “Vladimir Spivakov Invites” Festival for the first time (see Events). The music forum is sponsored by the Ryazan Region's government and is connected with the festivities on the occasion of the 85th anniversary of the Ryazan Philharmonic Society. The history of the Russian editions of the Vladimir Spivakov Festival goes back to 2001 when the maestro organized the music feast in Moscow with the participation of world stars and rising artists to take place once in two years. In the course of time, the project has extended its boundaries beyond Moscow and went to many other Russian towns from Murmansk to Omsk. Now Ryazan is continuing this trend.
The official birthday of the Ryazan Philharmonic Society is March 4, 1939. Now it is an actively developing organization with a long history and new daring prospects. Its concert hall in Ryazan has presented best Russian performers and collectives to its audience. The NPR has also played on this stage many a time.
The opening concert of the Festival on March 18 will have as its star the diva of the Russian opera Hibla Gerzmava (soprano), People's Artist of Russia and soloist of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theater. In Ryazan, she will present the same sumptuous program she sang at the final concert of the latest Moscow edition of the “Vladimir Spivakov Invites” Festival. It featured fragments from operas by Bellini, Verdi, Massenet, Cilea, Mascagni and Puccini. The artistic partnership of Vladimir Spivakov and the renowned singer started many years ago: they have performed a lot of fascinating joint projects in Russia and abroad.
On March 19, music lovers will meet a rising star Polina Thai, who will play the solo part in the Cello Concerto by Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky's Nocturne. Polina has won several awards of prestigious competitions including the “Nutcracker” television contest, the Tchaikovsky Youth Competition, the Oskar Rieding International Competition for Young Musicians in Slovenia, two All-Russia competitions (after D. Kabalevsky and “Constellation”) and others. She is also a grant-holder of the Spivakov Charity Foundation and the winner of the Vivacello Festival. The orchestra will also play works by Bellini and Mendelssohn.
The final concert on March 20 is dedicated to the art of Ludwig van Beethoven. Part I will feature his Piano Concerto No.5, Beethoven's most monumental opus in this genre, called the Emperor for its glorious sound, scale of ideas and images, splendor of the score. The program will end with Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, one of his most expressive works, which the author considered his best symphony (the opinion shared later by Tchaikovsky, whereas Wagner named it “the apotheosis of dance”). Ekaterina Mechetina, the Merited Artist of Russia, awardee of several international competitions, professor of the Moscow Conservatory, has been invited to play the piano part in the Concerto.