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On May 15 the Conservatory Big Hall was playing host to the Second International Music Festival. The 10-day event, held under the motto: "Music for Humanism, Peace and Friendship Among Nations", brought together leading composers and performers from 46 countries, among them Leonard Bernstein and Mikis Theodorakis.
The festival was a real Godsend to Russia's modern music buffs with more than 200,000 people flocking in to the concerts held in the city's best venues.
In West Germany they were holding a major festival of Music by Dmitry Shostakovich. During the six-month-long event, the longest ever, virtually everything ever written by the great 20th century composer, was played in various parts of the country. The festival started in Duisburg on September 16 with Shostakovich's longtime friend Yevgeny Mravinsky leading the Leningrad Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra which boasted each and every symphony Shostakovich ever wrote…
One could only wish the festival were held when the composer was still alive…
A string of major festivals of Russian music are held all across Europe with dozens of prominent Russian musicians performing in Finland where the biggest highlight is the 13-year-old violinist from Novosibirsk, Vadim Repin.
"We have never heard such a young virtuoso here before," raved a Finnish critic. "Repin is more than a virtuoso, he is an outstanding performer with his own vision of textbook compositions. His playing boggles the mind with its grand scale, confidence and magnetism of this young musician's personality…"
In Spain, people applaud like mad watching the fiery performance by the Soviet Army song and dance ensemble who perform as part of a Russian music festival held there…
"The singers and dancers clad in military uniforms perform with clockwork precision where each voice is part of a single whole… They offer a one-of-a-kind program blending perfectly together marching songs, folk songs, modern lyrical and classical numbers. Small wonder that the Alexandrov ensemble is so hugely popular in Europe…"
Young Russian musicians keep stunning audiences performing at prestigious international competitions. The singers shine the brightest with the Moscow Conservatory graduate, Vladimir Chernov winning the Myriam Helin contest in Finland. The Russian baritone also took a special Tito Gobi prize they had just instituted to commemorate the name of the great Italian baritone who died shortly before the competition…
In Brussels, Russian tenor Vladimir Bogachev wins the Grand Prix of a young singers' competition. Critics say, and with a very good reason, that Bogachev who only recently joined the Bolshoi opera company, will someday become a great singer…
In Moscow they are holding a national competition of symphony orchestras which brings together all of the country's philharmonic acts - all but the Moscow and Leningrad ones which, artistically and technically, still are way ahead of the others… Each orchestra offers its own program. The jury evaluates both the complexity of the music played, the musicians' ability to play together and the conductor's skill. The Gorky philharmonic symphony orchestra led for 27 years by its outstanding conductor Israel Gusman, emerges as a hands down winner…
The competition ends on March 25 and two days later, the 12-year-old graduate of the Gnessins Music school, Yevgeny Kisin, plays in the Conservatory Big Hall - the first time a prestigious venue like this is made available to a performer this young. Accompanied by the Moscow philharmonic orchestra led by Dmitry Kitayenko, Kisin plays two piano concertos by Chopin.
The young pianist walks out on stage wearing a white shirt, a pair of ill-fitting black trousers and a red Young Pioneer necktie. An ordinary-looking Soviet schoolboy, but the very moment he starts playing his larger-than-life talent is simply impossible to miss. The star-studded audience is stunned by what everyone says is a unique talent rising over the country's musical horizon…
Thousands of young workers and engineers join the construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway with the Communist party leadership keeping a close eye on the grand project's progress. And, as usual, the party ideologues commission the country's leading composers and poets to write songs singing praise to the heroic builders of the Baikal-Amur Railway…
In the summer they held a major festival in the towns and villages along the Baikal-Amur Railway bringing together the country's best pop singers and bands, including of course, the hugely popular Samotsvety band from Moscow…
Russian television unveils a new musical Goodbye, Mary Poppins! based on Pamela Travers' popular book of the same name. The movie bristles with a veritable constellation of charming songs written by the composer Maxim Dunayevsky. 15 years on, these very uplifting songs are still very popular making us feel better and younger…
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


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