14.09.2018

Valery Gergiev and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra Celebrating 30 Years of Collaboration

The XXIII Rotterdam Philharmonic Gergiev Festival will run from 13 September to 16 September. This year’s festival is dedicated to two significant milestones: 100-year anniversary of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and 30 years of creative collaboration between the ensemble and Valery Gergiev, who made his debut in Rotterdam in 1988. The participants of this year’s festival include the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of the Royal Conservatoire and Codarts, pianists Uri Caine and Sergei Babayan, organist Thierry Escaich, and soloists of the Mariinsky Opera and the Mariinsky Chorus.

The first day of the festival will be dedicated to Richard Wagner. The opening concert on 13 September will see a performance of excerpts from the composer’s operas Tristan und Isolde and Die Walküre. Featured vocalists for the performance are Anja Kampe (soprano), Mikhail Vekua (tenor), and Mikhail Petrenko (bass). The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra will be conducted by Valery Gergiev. Richard Wagner’s music will also be performed at the recital of Uri Caine, a famed jazz pianist, composer, and deft improviser. He will present his own interpretation of Wagner’s music works together with Ted Reichman (accordeon) and the Lutoslawski Quartet (string quartet).

The second day of the festival will feature three concerts. Renowned pianist Sergei Babayan will appear in recital at 16.00. He will perform works by Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and the modern composer Vladimir Ryabov. At 19.30, the Mariinsky Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev will perform Claude Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 (“Tragic”). The evening will conclude with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil performed by the Mariinsky Chorus under the baton of Andrei Petrenko.

The 15 September programme will be no less rich and diverse. At 11.30, Thierry Escaich, a famed French organist, composer and teacher, will appear in concert at the Laurenskerk in Rotterdam, which houses the biggest organ in the Netherlands. The programme includes works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Olivier Messiaen, as well as Thierry Escaich’s own music works. In the afternoon, Valery Gergiev will hold a master-class for the musicians of the Youth Orchestra of the Royal Conservatoire and Codarts at the De Doelen (Grote Zaal). After the intermission, the participants of the master-class will perform Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 (soloist: Karen Su) and The Scythian Suite. The highlight of the closing day of the festival is the world premiere of the new version of Sofia Gubaidulina's oratorio Über Liebe und Hass, created in 2018 for the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Gergiev Festival. The Mariinsky Chorus and the Mariinsky Opera soloists, including Irina Churilova (soprano), Mikhail Vekua (tenor), Vladimir Moroz (baritone), and Mikhail Petrenko (bass) will perform together with the Rotterdam ensemble under the baton of Valery Gergiev. The programme also features Igor Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat.

Once the main festival programme concludes, the young spectators will have an opportunity to attend the now-traditional event: an interactive concert, which integrates narration performed by actors, animation, and excerpts from Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Sleeping Beauty performed by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Ryan Bancroft (16 September).

The Rotterdam Philharmonic Gergiev Festival was founded by Valery Gergiev in 1995 and has since then become the largest festival of its kind held in the Netherlands. Maestro Gergiev has collaborated with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra since 1988, while from 1995 to 2008 he was the ensemble’s Principal Conductor. He remains the orchestra’s honorary conductor to this day.

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