15.03.2019

The III International Harp Festival Northern Lyre

The III International Harp Festival Northern Lyre will run at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre and chamber venues of the Mariinsky II from 21 March to 24 March. The festival’s participants include guest harpists from France, Belgium, Spain, the Czech Republic, Japan, China, and Canada, musicians of various St Petersburg orchestras (the Mariinsky Theatre, the Philharmonia, the Mikhailovsky Theatre, the St Petersburg Chamber Opera), as well as musicians from Moscow, Yekaterinburg, and Petrozavodsk. The festival’s programme includes classical works for solo harp, ensemble and orchestral works, as well as music by modern composers. Several works composed especially for the event will have their premieres at the festival. The festival is once again dedicated to the memory of harpist and philanthropist Yoko Nagae Ceschina, who helped many of the Mariinsky Theatre’s projects come to life.

The III International Harp Festival Northern Lyre will open with a gala concert on 21 March at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre with the participation of nine harpists and the Mariinsky Orchestra under the baton of Christian Knapp. To be performed is music by François-Adrien Boieldieu, Pedro José Blanco, Eduard Kiprsky, Vyacheslav Kruglik, André Caplet, and Elias Parish Alvars.

The concert on the eve of the festival (20 March, the Stravinsky Foyer) marks 110 years since the birth of Vera Dulova, a legendary harpist and People’s Artist of the USSR. Her student Natalya Shameeva, Professor of the Gnessin Academy of Music, will host a lecture and concert with the participation of the Bolshoi Orchestra soloists (22 March, the Mussorgsky Hall). The soirée concert on 22 March at the Concert Hall is dedicated to Boris Tishchenko and will help mark 80 years since the birth of the St Petersburg composer. To be performed is Tishchenko’s Harp Concerto and Rodion Shchedrin’s Concerto dolce for viola and string orchestra with harp. Featured soloists: Irina Donskaya-Tishchenko (harp), Sofia Kiprskaya (harp), and Yuri Afonkin (viola). The Mariinsky Orchestra will be conducted by Ivan Stolbov.

The festival’s closing concert Harp+ will present the instrument in different combinations – as part of a harp ensemble, with strings and winds, with voice and in concerto. The gala soirée’s participants include sixteen harpists, singers Maria Bayankina (soprano) and Aigul Khismatullina (soprano), the brass ensemble Seven+ and the Mariinsky Orchestra under the baton of Zaurbek Gugkaev. The programme includes music of different epochs, from Johann Sebastian Bach to modern composers. Sofia Kiprskaya, a musician of the Mariinsky Orchestra and an organiser of the Northern Lyre, described several special pieces to be performed at the concert: “At the closing concert, Anna Makarova, a soloist of the St Petersburg Philharmonia, will play Evgeny Petrov’s Mountain of Light dedicated to Yuri Temirkanov’s 80th anniversary. Eduard Kiprsky composed the trio Cleopatra’s Dream especially for the concert. There will be surprises at the concert as well. The programme also includes choreography routines staged by Vera Arbuzova featuring Yulia Makhalina. I think that harp is similar to ballet in terms of beauty and splendour, that is why it is so frequently heard in ballet scores.”

As tradition goes, the Mariinsky Theatre music festivals feature master-classes by famed musicians. This year’s master-classes will be held by Jana Boušková (the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, the Royal College of Music in London) and Isabelle Perrin (the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo). The festival will feature performances by the young generation of musicians, including young harpists studying at St Petersburg music schools and colleges aged from 7 to 15 and students of the Petrozavodsk State Glazunov Conservatoire (class of Yelizaveta Alexandrova).

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