A WORD ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

A WORD ABOUT THE FESTIVAL The Fourth International Festival of Chamber Music "Silver Lyre" includes eight concerts, which will present the art of chamber music performance of the world-known groups and soloists from Italy, the UK, the Czech Republic, Israel, France, Austria and Russia.

Following and developing traditions of the previous festivals, the organizers decided to preserve those principles of concerts forming which proved to be effective in practice. In other words, to present to the festival's audience both academic genres of chamber music - classical and baroque groups and orchestras, duets, trios and quartets, and modern genres called "crossover" which have become rather popular too.

Guided by these principles, and taking into account the fact that various European soloists and ensembles took part in the previous festivals, this time the organizers decided to invite such academic musicians and groups as The New Chamber Orchestra "Ferruccio Busoni". Earlier the orchestras from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as baroque ensembles from Germany, Italy and Russia took part in the festival. We also invited Czech Guarneri Trio Prague (French piano trio and an international Russian-American trio performed at previous festivals). Two duets - a French-Israeli one with a violinist Max Zorin and a pianist Renana Gutman, and a Russian one with Saint-Petersburg musicians in its cast: a cellist Dmitry Eremin and a pianist Inga Dzekzer are also in a program (before, duets from Russia, Poland and Japan participated in the festivals). The festival will also present two string quartets - Modigliani Quartet from France and Hugo Wolf Quartet from Germany (only two quartets from Hungary and Switzerland performed in the past festivals).

In the so-call "crossover" section the public will see the King's Singers sextet from the UK and an Austrian duet of music eccentrics Igudesman & Joo with a violinist Aleksey Igudesman and a pianist Hyung-ki Joo. This duet took part in the first "Silver Lyre" in 2010. Some time ago, apart from these musicians, only an Austrian Amarcord Wien ensemble performed in the "crossover" genre. All festival concerts will take place in two halls of the Saint-Petersburg Academic Philharmonic named after D.D. Shostakovich. The second and the final concerts will take place in the Grand Hall, and the rest - in the Small Hall named after M.I.Glinka. Italian Orchestra "Ferriccio Buson" will open the festival. Together with its soloists, a violinist Lucio Degani and a cellist Francesco Ferrarini, the orchestra will play music by Boccherini, Paganini, Bazzini, Puccini and Verdi. The festival program will continue with the performance of the English a capella vocal sextet King's Singers, which will present its new program called "The Great American Songbook".

A pianist Ivan Klansky, a violinist Cenek Pavlik and a cellist Marek Jerie from the Guarneri Trio Prague will play piano trios by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Dvorak. The program of the French-Israeli duet will include Sonata for a violin and a piano by Debussy, as well as violin miniatures by Chausson, Dorfman, Shostakovich, Auerbach, Prokofiev, Weill and Saint-Saens. French Modigliani Quartet will perform quartets by Haydn, Beethoven and Debussy, and Russian duet will play various compositions for a cello and a piano by Beethoven, Schumann, Martinu, Debussy and Poulenc.

Austrian musicians will participate in two final concerts. Hugo Wolf Quartet will play string quartets by Haydn, Berg and Schubert, and Igudesman & Joo will present a new music-comedy show "And now - Mozart!".

The organizers thank all music ensembles and soloists, who agreed to take part in the Saint-Petersburg festival, which has already become a tradition. They hope that in the future "Silver Lyre" festival will be giving the audience an opportunity to get acquainted with the best world achievements in the art of chamber music performance.