Press releases

GRODNO, 6 January (BelTA) – Grodno will be hosting the 14th Orthodox church music festival Kalozha Chime from 11 to 14 February, director of the festival Vladimir Lebetsky told BelTA.

All in all, the event will gather around 20 Belarusian and foreign participants. This year Grodno will welcome companies from Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Russia. For the first time the list of participants will feature two Moldovan groups, one performing church music and the other secular music. The competition program features choirs of children’s Sunday schools, church choirs, and amateur choirs of children and adult singers. The competition program of the international festival includes around 40 church and secular companies.

Starting from 8 January, the contestants will compete in the four-day elimination round. Its winners will perform in the final concerts organized by the Grodno Orthodox Eparchy.

Vladimir Lebetsky said that the program of the festival is currently under development. The forum will last approximately one week. An exhibition of icons by modern painters from Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine will open at the Sts. Boris and Gleb (Kalozha) Church in Grodno on 8 February. The program of the festival also includes photo exhibitions, cinema lectures, and nights of spiritual poetry and bard songs.

The Kalozha Church Music Festival was established in Grodno in 2002. It was timed to the 10th anniversary of the revival of the Grodno Eparchy. In 2011 the Belarusian Culture Ministry presented the status of an international event to the festival. The organizers of the Kalozha Church Music Festival are the Grodno Orthodox Eparchy and the Grodno Oblast Executive Committee. The international jury includes ministers of religion with special music education, professors of academies of music of Belarus, Russia, France, and Romania, composers, choirmasters, and directors of choirs from different countries. The festival awards winners in eight nominations.