Press releases

MINSK, 5 September (BelTA) – The 11th Yuri Bashmet International Festival in Minsk will delight the audience with the night of premieres on 5 October, BelTA learned from the organizers of the festival.

The concert program “Modern Classics - Night of Premieres” in the Belarusian State Philharmonic will become one of the most important events of the 11th Yuri Bashmet International Festival, which will be running in Minsk from 30 September to 11 October. The concert will bring together the world’s best musicians at the invitation of the famous Belarusian pianist and conductor Rostislav Krimer, the author and art director of the festival.

The concert will include the works by three generations of composers of the 20th and 21st centuries: classics by Sergei Prokofiev, the 125th anniversary of whose birth is celebrated this year, Valentin Silvestrov, who is already called a classic, and young Belarusian composer Sergey Badalov.

The concert will feature Sergei Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite, op.20 (ala and Lolli). The suite was commissioned by ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev. However, Diaghilev rejected the ballet, and Prokofiev remade it into a suite. The Scythian Suite was premiered under the composer's baton in Petrograd 100 years ago.

A concert by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov is going to be a landmark event for the Belarusian capital. The legendary composer, who will celebrate his 80th birthday next year, has never been to Minsk. His works are performed widely around the world, but not in Minsk. Silvestrov’s music is more melodic, intelligible and sincere than most of the pieces composed by his contemporaries. In 1967 Valentin Silvestrov was one of the first to win the Koussevitzky international prize for the best work of contemporary music and became popular in the West.

On 5 October the concert will also feature two Belarusian premieres: Postlude for piano and orchestra (1984) and Symphony No.7 (2002-2003).

The Postlude will be performed by world-renowned pianist People's Artist of Russia Alexei Lubimov. Many decades ago, he was a frequent guest in the Belarusian capital, and once again the Yuri Bashmet Festival invites him to perform in Minsk.

Highlight of the evening will be the world premiere of the works of the Belarusian composer. From year to year the art director of the festival Rostislav Krimer invites a Belarusian author to write a new piece for the festival. This year the festival will present the work by young author Sergey Badalov, who studied at the conservatories of Minsk, Bydgoszcz and Hamburg and is now completing a master’s degree program in Lodz. He is the winner of several international composition competitions. His play Asweja, which combines his own music and authentic Belarusian folk songs, has been praised by Light.Move.Festival 2015. Specially for the festival Sergey Badalov wrote Sleepwalker for symphony orchestra.

The piece will be performed by the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Belarus. Conductor: Honored Artist of Ukraine Viktor Ploskina.

It was reported earlier that the 11th Yuri Bashmet International Festival will open with the concert program “Moscow-Vienna. Shostakovich-Kreisler” featuring Sergey Krylov (violin, Italy) and Rostislav Krimer (piano, Belarus) on 30 September. On the International Music Day, 1 October, Russian pianist Nikolai Lugansky will play two concertos in one evening at the festival "Legends of Piano" accompanied by the State academic Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Belarus. Viviane Hagner from Germany will play with the East-West Chamber Orchestra under the button of Rostislav Krimer as part of the Legends on the Stradivarius Violin program on 7 October. The concert will feature the repeated prizewinner of the FIG World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships Melitina Staniouta. The festival will conclude with a concert of People's Artist of the USSR Yuri Bashmet and Chamber Ensemble Moscow Soloists on 11 October.