On April, 9 the legendary Carnegie Hall hosted a concert of the Musical Olympus Festival. It was a musical celebration that once again demonstrated: music brings people together whatever the political situation is.

“Not all news about Russia relates to Crimea nowadays”, started his column about the concert The Huffington Post correspondent. The young performers from Russia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Switzerland, and France, winners of prestigious international competitions and participants of the Musical Olympus Festival got several curtain calls from the excited audience that evening.

Russian bassist Igor Eliseev, Belgian violinist Marc Bouchkov, and French Pianist Remi Geniet gave a striking interpretation of a rarely performed Gran Duo Concertante, for violin and double bass by Giovanni Bottesini. They demonstrated their outstanding skills not only as soloists, but also as virtuoso ensemble players.

“This concert showed once again how musicians from different countries can find common language and hear each other. They met in New York for the first time and in two days of rehearsing achieved such a good understanding as if they were playing together for several years. Tonight the audience witnessed a genuinely brilliant result of creative collaboration,” said Irina Nikitina, President of the Musical Olympus Foundation.

Swiss mezzo-soprano Nathalie Mittelbach chose for her performance Zigeunerlieder by Brahms and Carmen’s aria from the famous opera by Georges Bizet. The performance of Bulgarian percussionist Vassilena Serfimova (marimba) who performed barefoot was a bright and memorable final chord. Sophisticated New York audience gave her a standing ovation.

On stage of Carnegie Hall the Musical Olympus presented three participants of the last year festival and two musicians who will take part in this year’s event. On May, 22 the XIX International Musical Olympus Festival will open in St Petersburg. Traditionally it will offer the music lovers best in class performers and concert programmes.