The Mariinsky Orchestra at festivals in Europe

The Mariinsky Theatre’s long-established tradition of performing at acclaimed music festivals in Europe continues this year with a series of concerts by the orchestra under the baton of maestro Gergiev.

On 29 July the Mariinsky Orchestra will be performing in Kiel in Germany at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. The programme for the concert comprises masterpieces of Russian and European music. The concert will open with the overture from the opera Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner, the two hundredth anniversary of whose birth is a key celebration in the music world this year. The programme also features one of the most popular piano concerti – Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor – as well as Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. The solo in Grieg’s concerto will be performed by Elisabeth Leonskaja, an outstanding pianist from “Richter’s inner circle” and a representative of the great Russian piano school.  

On 30 July the same programme will be performed in Slovenia at the Ljubljana Music Festival. That evening the solo in Grieg’s piano concerto will be performed by nineteen-year-old Russian pianist Dmitry Maiboroda, who featured in a television film dedicated to the life and work of the Norwegian composer and his friendship with Pyotr Tchaikovsky.  

On 31 July the Mariinsky Orchestra will be appearing at the Carinthian Summer festival in Villach. The programme for the Austrian concert is entirely Russian and features works from various periods, including both established classics and contemporary pieces such as Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture, Sergei Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony in B Flat Major and Rodion Shchedrin’s Fourth Piano Concerto (Sharp Keys). The incredibly demanding solo in Shchedrin’s concerto, described as “tricky” by the composer himself, will be performed by Austrian pianist Anika Vavic.