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1998
             
On June 19 the Conservatory Big Hall in Moscow was hosting a solemn ceremony of awarding the Grand Russian Prize. A star-studded international jury awarded the Slava/Gloria prize to composer Alfred Schnittke who, bedridden in a German clinic, never showed up for the grand occasion…
Incapacitated and virtually silenced by a series of strokes, Schnittke kept working on though, completing a new symphony, which he tried unsuccessfully to put down on paper. His good friends, wife Irina and conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky, rushed to the rescue writing down the whole thing with the author using his eyes to let them know about occasional mistakes… With the work done, Gennady Rozhdestvensky unveiled the Ninth Symphony to the people packing the Conservatory Big Hall in Moscow…
The Ninth Symphony was Schnittke's last composition. On August 3, less than two months after the premiere, he was gone…
In the fall, the "Japan-Russia Culture Bridge" festival was held in Moscow and St.Petersburg. The biggest highlight of the event featuring all kinds of exhibitions, drama and ballet performances, however, were joint performances by the world-famous Russian cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and the Japanese conductor Seiji Odzawa. The two great musicians partnered on stage conducting Benjamin Britten's War Requiem…
Taking a break from conducting, Rostropovich also played a concerto for cello by Antonin Dvorak and Richard Strauss' fantasy variations to Don Quixote…
The Tchaikovsky Big Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Vladimir Fedoseyev were marking 25 years of their partnership. It's hard to believe that this long and happy tandem started off with a scandal. Fedoseyev took over the reins following the scandalous departure of Gennady Rozhdestvensky who didn't like what was being done by the big shots at the Radio Committee his orchestra then belonged to. Many musicians who literally adored Rozhdestvensky quit in protest and the rest gave the new conductor a very hostile reception. 25 years on, the passions had long calmed down and Fedoseyev was now a widely acclaimed maestro…
Vladimir Fedoseyev marked his 25 years with the Big Symphony with a major festival in Moscow, a successful European tour and the release of a big retrospective of records they made over the years…
September 6 brought the 70th birth anniversary of another outstanding Russian conductor, Yevgeny Svetlanov. Proving his bona fides when he was still in Conservatory, Svetlanov then moved on to lead this country's best orchestras, including that of the Bolshoi Theater. Svetlanov has spent the past 33 years conducting the State Symphony Orchestra with whom he recorded a staggering 250 LPs making up the one of a kind Anthology of Russian Classical Music….
Yevgeny Svetlanov's 70th birthday was initially celebrated in Europe where he conducted several orchestras and the celebrations then moved on to Moscow culminating with a magnificent tribute at the Bolshoi where the maestro took turns conducting the house and the State Symphony orchestras… To top it all off, he was given Russia's highest award - the Order For Meritorious Services to the Nation…
It was hard to imagine amid all that celebration that, in about a year's time, things would go real sour with the musicians, rattled by Svetlanov's continuous absence, asking him to quit. Svetlanov refused to and it now was the turn of Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoi to interfere and fire the world-famous conductor for… absenteeism…
The Mariinsky Theater in St.Petersburg was now touted as one of the world's best music companies, largely thanks to their formidable artistic director Valery Gergiyev who had put together a stellar outfit making each premiere a much-awaited sensation…
The world's top-flight performers enjoy performing at the Mariinsky where the famous Spanish tenor Placido Domingo takes part in the June premiere of Richard Wagner's Die Walkure opera…
In June the 11th Tchaikovsky Competition began in Moscow amid a mounting scandal over the organizers' failure to make their ICA membership dues in time which could cost the world-acclaimed competition its place in the International Competition Association. Happily, the problem was sorted out at the eleventh hour and the competition proceeded as planned.
The downside of that year's contests, however, was the near absence of bright young talents from Europe and the United States with performers from China, South Korea and Japan working hard to fill the void. Russians still swept most of the awards though, among them the 21 year-old pianist Denis Matsuyev.
A native of Siberia now studying at the Moscow Conservatory, Denis caught the eye of the New Names charity fund when he was 14 and had since been constantly on the road. Meaning that in 1998 Denis was already a seasoned performer…
Another high point of the year was the oboe player Alexei Ogrinchuk, also a New Names scholarship holder who became the first Russian oboist to win the top award of the very prestigious international competition in Geneva…
Century turns usually usher in many bright new stars in various fields of human endeavor. In popular music, the 25 year-old singer Yulian was making a big splash winning the hearts of both his young listeners, their parents and even grandparents. Everyone was mad about Yulian's hauntingly beautiful voice and singing manner and the young singer was performing at the country's best venues …
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


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