Concert in State Capella closed the XVIII International Musical Olympus Festival in St Petersburg that took place from May 21 to June 2. For two weeks St Petersburg has become the center of world classical music and gathered young talented performers from 11 countries: Australia, Brazil, Korea, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Rumania, Ukraine, and Russia. The audience of the festival exceeded 4 thousand music lovers.
The main festival programme included seven concerts that took place in the best concert halls of the city: Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre, the Hermitage Theater, the State Academic Chapel, and the Academic Philharmonia. Young performers enjoyed many curtain calls and standing ovations.
The audience was impressed by the mastery of conductors Tobias Volkmann (Brazil) and Gergely Madaras (Hungary), wonderful singing of Elena Tokar (soprano, Ukraine) and Anna Jihye Sohn (soprano, Korea), virtuoso and thoughtful play of pianists Varvara Nepomnyashchaya (Russia), Ah Ruem Ahn (Korea) and Federico Colli (Italy), as well as confident and accurate rendition of D. Shostakovich works by Olga Volkova (violin, Russia).
The listeners were impressed by the energetic and magical performance of Bulgarian percussionist Vasilena Serafimova and light, smooth play of the harpist from Switzerland Elisa Netzer. Guests of the Chapel concert on May, 24 will remember striking performance by Igor Eliseev (double bass, Russia) who played the works of Estonian composer E. Tubin on the instrument made by P. Grancino in the XVII century.
Socially-oriented festival programme included concerts in several St Petersburg institutions: in investigative detention center №1 “Kresty” on May 23, in elderly care facility on May 27, and in children hospice on May 29. Russian musicians performed for them Russian and foreign classical music pieces on the button accordion, double bass, violin, oboe, piano, saxophone, domra, and cello.
Also on May, 24 the XVIII International Musical Olympus Festival participants Nicolas Moutier (trombone, France) and Igor Yeliseev (double bass, Russia) gave workshops in St Petersburg State Conservatory n.a. N. А. Rimsky-Korsakov. Before the upcoming exams conservatory students demonstrated to musicians their mastery and received some practical advice from them.
“This year the Festival was organized on a very high level,” says Irina Nikitina, President of the Musical Olympus Foundation. “And I am not only talking about the high professional level of performers, but also about the high level of festival guests, that included some distinguished international politicians, several Royal families’ representatives , as well as press representatives from the US and Asia. They called Musical Olympus a truly international event. We are pleased to hear such a high assessment of our 18 years of work during which the Festival has been promoting young musicians just beginning their artistic career and not known to the wide public”.
It has become a good tradition to invite the best Festival participants in St Petersburg to take part at the Festival presentation concerts abroad. Thus, in 2013 Varvara Nepomnyashchaya will perform at the presentation concert in Baku (Azerbaijan) in September and Elena Tokar will sing in Zurich (Switzerland) in October. Similar gala concert took place in March in New York at the Carnegi Hall featuring participants of Musical Olympus Festival-2012.