Ten pianists and six concerts:
Valery Afanassiev, Nicholas Angelich, Mira Jevtić, Polina Osetinskaya, Mikhail Yanovitsky, pupils and graduates of the class of Marina Wolf, teacher at the Special School of Music of the St Petersburg Conservatoire in recitals and together with the Mariinsky Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev.
The The Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre will be hosting the fourth International Piano Festival.
According to maestro Valery Gergiev, the festival’s aim is to invite musicians to St Petersburg who are internationally acclaimed but as yet less well known in Russia, to showcase new talents and clear the path for young musicians as well as to make piano music more popular.
This international piano forum, which for the third year in a row has been held twice a season at the Concert Hall, presents dazzling musicians from various generations and schools in addition to its tradition of focussing on one particular piano school with concerts featuring students of prominent teachers. The first festival brought together the students of the famed Tatiana Zelikman. At the second festival, Sergei Babayan appeared with Daniil Trifonov, one of his pupils at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The third festival saw performances by students from the class of Professor Alexander Sandler of the St Petersburg Conservatoire. The current festival focuses on graduates and students from the class of Marina Veniaminovna Wolf, a senior teacher at the Special School of Music of the St Petersburg Conservatoire. As well as a class concert, there will also be individual concerts by students of Marina Wolf who have already established themselves on the international scene – Polina Osetinskaya and Mikhail Yanovitsky.
The festival will focus on Ludwig van Beethoven in its programmes. All of the composer’s piano concerti are to be performed at the opening and the close of the festival by Nicholas Angelich and Valery Afanassiev together with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev.
On 27 November the festival opens with American pianist Nicholas Angelich, who has already appeared on numerous occasions at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre and established a loyal following. This time the pianist will be performing the Second, Third and Fifth Piano Concerti by Ludwig van Beethoven, for whose music he reserves a particular admiration: “The music of this brilliant composer is always greater than the possibilities of any instrument or performer. Beethoven’s music demands the most exacting performing skills. Beethoven has everything – classicism, romanticism and even modernism. He avoided stereotypes, he was always original.” The pianist’s repertoire also includes all of the composer’s sonatas.
The Mariinsky Orchestra will be conducted by maestro Valery Gergiev.
On 29 November Mikhail Yanovitsky, a graduate of the class of Marina Wolf at the Special School of Music of the St Petersburg Conservatoire who later graduated from the class of Mikhail Voskresensky at the Moscow Conservatoire and then continued his studies at the Juilliard School in the USA becoming a regular recitalist in America, will be performing the solo in Richard Strauss’ Burleske for piano and orchestra and George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto; conductor – Gavriel Heine.
On 30 November there will be a recital by Serbian pianist Mira Jevtić, a regular participant of the festival. Her concert programme features works by Ludwig van Beethoven and César Franck as well as a work by Grant Foster, an Australian composer living in Wales who frequently works with Mira Jevtić. The Ballad of Reading Gaol after the poem by Oscar Wilde for voice and piano by Grant Foster is dedicated to Mira Jevtić and Andrew Goodwin, an Australian tenor also featuring in the concert.
On 1 December (12:00) there will be a concert by students from the class of Marina Veniaminovna Wolf – those still studying as well as graduates continuing their studies at conservatoires and established pianists such as Alexandra Masalyova, Rustam Muradov, Eduard Kiprsky, Nadezhda Rubanenko and Alexandre Pirojenko.
On 1 December (19:00) the programme for Polina Osetinskaya’s recital, also a graduate from the class of Marina Wolf, includes works by George Frederick Handel and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons.
On 2 December there will be a concert to close the festival. Valery Afanassiev, one of the most intellectual contemporary pianists, will be performing two piano concerti by Ludwig van Beethoven – the First and the Fourth. The Mariinsky Orchestra that evening will be conducted by Valery Gergiev.
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