In February 2016, Sochi will host the IX Winter International
Festival of Arts under direction of Yuri Bashmet, the
outstanding musician. The Festival will surprise the audience
with breadth of styles, a variety of entertainment events and
a constellation of music, dance, ethnic and theatrical stars.
Among the participants of the upcoming festival there
will be the most prominent musicians representing Russian
and international performing arts of the younger generation:
Tatiana Samouil (violin, Belgium), Alexander Buzlov (cello),
the youngest Grand Prix winner in history of the International
Tchaikovsky Competition Akiko Suwanai (violin, Japan),
soloist of the Bolshoi Theater Olga Kulchinskaya (soprano).
The ceremony of the Festival Grand Opening to be held on
the stage of the Russian Winter Theater, for the first time ever,
will welcome one of the most remarkable interpreters of
Bach, the Iranian pianist Ramin Bahrami. While the closing
gala concert will be honored by a young Austrian musician,
winner of a silver medal and a special prize of the International
Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Deutsche Grammophon
pianist Ingolf Wunder.
Maestro Bashmet will take part in festival concerts as a soloist
and conductor of the ensembles fostered by him — Moscow
Soloists Chamber Orchestra, the Grammy Award winner,
the Novaya Rossiya (New Russia) State Symphony Orchestra
and the All-Russian Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Viola Benefit Special Concert will be devoted to the musical
interpretation of the theme of Harold, the famous romantic
hero, glorified in the poem by Lord Byron. Apart from
Berlioz's Symphony Harold in Italy, the audience will hear
works for viola and orchestra by contemporary authors —
A. Tchaikovsky and O. Feltzner.
The organist Evgeniya Krivitskaya, winners of international
competitions Ksenia Bashmet and Ivan Rudin (piano), a soloist
of the La Scala theater orchestra Diego Dini Ciacchi (oboe)
and a singer with a unique vocal timbre, countertenor Sergey
Vanin, will perform chamber concerts.
Like the previous festivals, the program of the IX International
Winter Arts Forum will easily combine different
kinds of genres and trends of contemporary art. The festival
will open with a special project — the musical play Le Petit
Prince (by Antoine de Saint-Exupery) featuring Maestro Yuri
Bashmet and actor Konstantin Khabensky. Oleg Menshikov,
an outstanding actor and director, will present his unique
autobiographical performance-concert Dream Orchestra.
Brass; while Daniele Finzi Pasca, a renowned Swiss director, choreographer and circus artist, author of the closing
ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, will present his
new theatrical work Bianca and Bianco. The Organ Hall of
the Philharmonic will introduce to the audience the literary and musical performances dedicated to Shakespeare,
Russian poets of the Silver Age and the end of the twentieth
century whose poetry will be performed by actors Peter Tataritsky and Vladimir Koshevoy.
This time, the traditional dance recital of the festival will
be dedicated to the memory of Anna Pavlova, the great Russian ballet dancer. February 12, 2016 marks the 135th anniversary of Anna Pavlova’s birth.
Each year, the Winter Arts Forum introduces the most remarkable representatives of ethnic music. This time, guests of
the Sochi Festival in Russia will hear Dhafer Youssef, a Tunisian composer, singer and oud (an ancient lute) player popular in many countries worldwide. The musician will present his
new program Birds Requiem created in 2013.
Specifically for the Sochi Festival, the baroque band Soqquadro Italiano, a unique ensemble which has already participated in Yuri Bashmet’s Yaroslavl Festival, will present
their new program. This time, the Italian musicians will dedicate their music to Antonio Vivaldi.
Nino Katamadze and her Insight band are frequent guests
of the Sochi Festival. Nino is a Georgian jazz singer, winner
of national and international awards. This time Nino and
her band will jointly play with the Moscow Soloists chamber
orchestra under the baton of Maestro Bashmet. The concert
program will include works of great classical composers —
Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, performed in a completely new unique manner
The Sochi Festival will host a young composers competition already for the second time, while for the first time it will
host international academy for young musicians which the
Festival holds in partnership with the Chapelle Music Academy (Belgium) and Krassels Festival (Finland).
