Musical Olympus
Concert with prize-winners of international music competitions

The Musical Olympus Foundation was founded in St Petersburg in 1995; the best-known initiatives of the foundation are the annual international Musical Olympus festival, the annual charitable ball and the Express Line St Petersburg–Moscow concert series, which has featured appearances by such stars as Roberto Alagna, Bobby McFerrin, Diana Krall, Yo-Yo Ma, Anne-Sophie Mutter and András Schiff, as well as Japan’s NHK Symphony Orchestra tour (conducted by Charles Dutoit), the Orchestre National de France (conducted by Kurt Mazur) and the West-Eastern Divan orchestra (founded and conducted by Daniel Barenboim). The Foundation has run many projects together with the Moscow Philharmonic, including concerts with Anna Netrebko and Rollando Villason, Maurizio Pollini and the Wiener Philharmoniker (conductor and soloist – Daniel Barenboim). In February 2003, the Musical Olympus Foundation organised Berlin’s opening concert of German-Russian Cultural Dialogue 2003–2004, which was attended by Vladimir Putin and Johannes Rau. The foundation has been involved with some of Mikhail Pletnev’s creative projects. In 2003 came a tour of musicians of Russia and Ukraine, marking one century since the birth of Vladimir Horowitz, while 2004 saw the concert project Chopiniana and the 2005–06 season witnessed the Mikhail Pletnev Beethoven Academies series.
The Musical Olympus International Festival has been an annual event since 1996. The festival has seen performances by major international competition prize-winners. Young soloists perform alongside the symphony orchestras of the St Petersburg Philharmonic, the Mariinsky Theatre and the Hermitage. In recent years, Musical Olympus has presented over two hundred and eighty musicians to audiences – instrumentalists, singers, conductors and composers from thirty-eight countries. It is one of the festival’s tasks to support young musicians starting out on their careers by giving them the opportunity to appear at the most prestigious concert halls of Europe, America and Asia. Musical Olympus opens up unique chances for music lovers to hear the finest young performers and introduce them to new trends and developments in the performing arts. Since 2007, under the patronage of the World Social Forum Dialogue of Civilisations, concerts of the Musical Olympus Foundation have been held at New York’s Carnegie Hall. In April 2009, the festival presented a concert at the Berlin Philharmonic.