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1981
             
On May 5 an international music festival "for humanism, peace and friendship among peoples" opens in Moscow bringing together 166 musicians from 42 countries. "Strengthening world peace is something we must all be striving for these days," Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev said in a message of greetings sent to the participants, "and artists are actively involved in this effort telling people the truth about our time and asserting the lofty ideals of progress."
Cuban composer Roberto Sanches Ferrer brought along a symphonic poem for voice and orchestra, Khatyn, he had written after seeing the Belorussian village of the same name or, rather, what had remained of it, after the Nazis torched it with all its residents during World War 2…
Italian composer Franco Manino unveiled his Triumph of Love cantata inspired by modern-day Russian poets. The Triumph of Love is about the very essence of human life - love, kindness, and the eternal quest for happiness…
The organizers managed to squeeze nearly a hundred entries by the world's leading composers into the festival's 10-day format…
Meanwhile, Leningrad plays host to the first Neva Choirs festival featuring choral ensembles from more than 80 cities. The darling of the city authorities, the festival's organizer Vladislav Chernushenko, the artistic director of the Leningrad Choir, ventures the nearly impossible, holding several concerts of Russian Orthodox music on the sidelines of the Neva Choirs festival. One had to have courage to dare something like this in an atheist country where national spiritual traditions and religious art masterpieces had long been suppressed by the Soviet officialdom….
The audience was flabbergasted, as if the mysterious and unknown Atlantis had suddenly re-emerged from the deep…
The Neva Choirs festivals have since been regularly held in St.Petersburg and each time Vladislav Chernushenko has a nice surprise ready for his listeners…
On September 25, the 75th birthday of Dmitry Shostakovich, they hold an anniversary festival of his music in Leningrad. It was such a pity that the composer himself never lived to that day! The Shostakovich festival was taking place in the Small and Big Halls of the Leningrad Philharmonic Society where the composer often held the premieres of his new works. Opening the festival program was the Fifth Symphony with Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting, just like he did during the symphony's first night performance on November 21, 1937…
Since then, Shostakovich anniversary festivals have been held in Leningrad each year and the city's Philharmonic Society has taken on the name of one of the 20th century's foremost composers…
On New Year's Eve in Moscow, the pianist Svyatoslav Richter and Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts curator Irina Antonova created a stir launching the December Nights music festival. The essentially chamber-tinged elitist event brought music and painting harmoniously together…
Richter and Antonova decided to give the December Nights festival a traditional status and devote each one to a specific subject. The first such festival was all about Russian classical music.
Top-flight performers from Russia, Europe and America take part in the event's 16 concerts, each personally invited by Richter who plays in almost every concert…
In Moscow, the Bolshoi Theater unveils Shostakovich's Golden Age ballet. Written in 1929, the ballet had its first performance in Leningrad in 1930. It didn't stick long, however, and shortly after, it was taken off the bill and never staged again. Choreographer Yuri Grigorovich wanted more than just give it a new lease on life, he was out to offer a full-time modern-day extravaganza. Using an innovative dancing technique, bordering on acrobatics, the new ballet makes it big right away drawing comparisons to the timeless classical masterpieces.
The Golden Age played to high acclaim all around the world winning glowing reviews in the press.
The young Russian musicians keep up the good job, ever since they won the 1926 Chopin Competition in Warsaw. One of the many gold medals they won in 1981 went to the Moscow Conservatory student Ilya Kaler who triumphed at the prestigious violin competition in Genoa, Italy, aptly named after the great 19th century violinist Niccolo Paganini.
The 19-year-old Ilya Kaler made a highly successful career winning, among many other things, the prestigious Tchaikovsky international competition in Moscow.
In Russia, the rock-starved audiences are applauding like mad to the newly-formed DDT rock band which derives its name from a popular insecticide.
The band and its leader, Yuri Shevchuk have a playing and singing manner all their own which sits so perfectly well with opposition-minded youngsters and, of course, gets the band in trouble with the authorities.
Alla Pugacheva remains the country's number one pop diva, the official criticisms only adding to her nationwide popularity. People keep showering the TV and radio stations with letters asking to hear their beloved singer…
Charts-topper for many years, Alla Pugacheva will forever remain a superstar who took the staid Soviet pop scene by storm establishing herself as the Queen of Russian Pop .
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


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