The solemn opening of the 7th Mstislav Rostropovich International Festival, formed in 2010 in memory of the musician and the citizen, is to take place traditionally on March 27th at the Great Hall of the Conservatory. The festival organizers are the Ministry of Culture, the Government of Moscow and the Foundation for Cultural and Humanitarian Programs. The Artistic Director is the President of the Foundation, the daughter of Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya, Olga Rostropovich.
According to her, this year's Mstislav Rostropovich festival will be dedicated to Galina Vishnevskaya. The 90th anniversary of the birth of the great Russian singer and Mstislav Rostropovich’s muse. Her birthday will be celebrated in October. Mozart's Requiem, one of the favorite works of Galina Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich, will be performed in the Grand Hall of the Conservatory on March 27th, the day of the birthday of my father. The performance will be attended by Barbara Frittoli, Daniela Barcellona, Ramon Vargas, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo. The Russian National Orchestra and the Yurlov State Academic Choir, conducted by Massimo Zanetti.
During the ten days of the festival the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski and the violinist Boris Brovtsyn will perform in Moscow on April 2nd. The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Myung-Whun Chung will perform on April 5th, moreover the maestro will perform as the soloist – it will take place for the first time in Russia after the Tchaikovsky International competition in 1974, where he won the second prize among pianists.
One of the main festival events will be a concert performance of the Verdi's ‘’Aida’', performed by Galina Vishnevskaya on the best stages of the world with the participation of Maria Jose Siri, Veronica Simeoni, Fabio Sartori and other well-known soloists, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino choir and orchestra conducted by maestro Zubin Mehta on March 30th.
By tradition, the festival will be attended by young and gifted musicians: the favorite musician of the Russian public, the nineteenth winner of the Tchaikovsky International, French pianist Luc Debarg. He will play a solo program at the Great Hall of the Conservatory on March 29th. Soloists of the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Singing Center named after will give a concert on April 3rd in the hometown of Galina Vishnevskaya, the city of Kronstadt. They will represent one of his most brilliant performances, the Pagliacci opera by Leoncavallo in the stage of the Hermitage Theater in St. Petersburg on April 4th.
The Rostropovich International Festival is considered to be one of the largest and most dignified events. It was attended by 25 orchestras, 8 choral ensembles, 28 conductors, 80 soloists since 2010. Different genres, bright premieres, concerts of world famous musicians and debuts of talented young performers were on festival poster. The Mstislav Rostropovich International Festival presented pianist Rudolf Buchbinder in Moscow for the first time, as well as conductors Christoph Eschenbach and Dmitri Jurowski, cellist Alice Vaylershtayn, Enrico Dindo and Truls Mork, pianist Yudzhu Wong, violinist Ray Chen, English Chamber Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Vienna Tonkunstler Orchestra. Among other "discoveries" of the Mstislav Rostropovich Festival were the performance of violinist Maksim Vengerov with a solo program after a long break, the famous American Ballet Theatre that hadn't toured to Moscow for more than 50 years, and the Orchestre de Paris, which performed at the festival after a 23-year hiatus.
