«December Nights» at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

«December Nights» at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is a music festival which has been held at the museum annually since 1981. The idea for the event came from Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter (1915 – 1997) and the director of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Irina Alexandrovna Antonova
Svyatoslav Richter was the mastermind and art director of the musical festival. The main idea of the “December Nights” may be considered the idea of unity of cultures through recreation of a defined era of synthetic music, paintings, poetry and drama. The audience can feel as if in church or in the hall of a palace, where in their midst, music and memory has returned to the fine arts.  At the same time, the White Hall in our museum is a chambered place ideal for making music, giving the sensation of participation in the musical process.
Since 1998 the festival has been named “Svyatoslav Richter’s December Nights”, and the art director after Richter’s death has been the eminent musician Yuri Bashmet. During his time the festival has become world acclaimed and its program filled with an abundance of talent. The participants of the program are distinguished musicians, stage managers, artists and poets.
The performances in the “December Nights” program, including rare, difficult chamber productions – so highly valued by Richter - which continues to attract devoted audiences to the museum.   Richter often said: “The best concerts are those where the audience have to stand around the stage in order to admit all” Richter valued ‘real’ audience, who in earnest judge musical art. ”The audience is always right” was another of Richter’s frequent sayings.  And our task is to preserve the high level of the festival, of that which was dear to the great musician. 
XXVIII International music festival “Svyatoslav Richter’s December Nights”  -  “Dedicated to Turner – image and sound” includes the following program:
30.11 Zuckerman Chamber players: Pinchas Zuckerman (violin), Jessica Linnebach (violin) , Jetro Marks (viola) , Ashan Pillai (viola), Amanda Forsyth (cello). Canada
                The concert is by invitation only.

3.12 Alexei Utkin (oboe), Vadim Kholodenko (pianoforte), Alena Baeva (violin), Sergey Lomovsky (Violin),      
Andrei Usov (viola), Sergey Poltavsky (viola), Alexander Buzlov (chello)  Britten, Bridge, Vaughan Williams
 
5.12 Alexei Lyobimov (pianoforte), Sergei Kasprov (pianoforte)
List, Wagner, Mahler, Saint-Saëns, Horowitz

6.12 Renaud Capuçon (violin), Gautier Capuçon (chello), France. Oleg Mayzenberg (pianoforte), Austria, Yuri   
Bashmet (viola), Maksim Khopev (contrabass)
Schubert 

8.12 Lyodmila Berlinskaya (pianoforte), Alexander Runin (chello), Alexander Trostyansky (violin),
Roman  Balashov (viola) Arina Shevlyakova (violin)
Britten, Bridge, Edward Elgar

11.12 Nikolay Lugansky (pianoforte)
Chopin, List, Rakhmaninov

13.12 Anna Aglatova (soprano), Svetlana Shilova (mezzo-soprano), Pavel Kolgatin (tenor), Sergey Romanovsky (tenor) Irina Butyrina (pianoforte), Antonina Kadobnova (pianoforte)
The voices of the romance are: Schubert, Shuman, Mercadante, Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti 

14.12 Chamber ensemble “Soloists of Moscow”, art director, conductor and soloist, Yuri Bashmet (viola), Mario Brunello (cello) Italy, Maksim Paster (tenor)   
Britten, Tavener.

16.12 Stephen Wallace (countertenor), Richard Sweeney (lute) Great Britain,
Olga Filippova (harpsichord), Pavel Servin (baroque cello)
Purcell, Handel

17.12 Hesperian XXI, Art director, Jordi Savall, Spain.
Lux Feminae – Seven images of women in old Spain

20.12 Il Giardino Armonico, Art director Giovanni Antonini, Italy.
Castillo, Merula, Buonamente, Legrenzi, Vivaldi, Galuppi

24.12 Marat Gali (tenor), Oleg Ryabets (sopranist) Alexei Gorivol (pianoforte)
Academy of Fine Art boys choir, Popov Big Children's choir.
Choirmaster Anatoly Kislyakov
Britten – Christmas Carols, ballads, songs

25.12 Alexander Melnikov (pianoforte)
Skriabin, Chopin

27.12 Natalia Gutman (viola) Vyacheclav Poprugin (pianoforte)
Hindemith, Bridge, Onslow, Britten

30.12 Alexei Ogrinchuk (oboe) Moris Burg (Oboe) France, Sergio Azzolini (bassoon), Italy, Tatyana Erler 
(contrabass) Germany, Reinut Tepp (harpsichord), Estonia
Handel and his contemporaries

Art Director Yuri

Concerts start at 19.00

Enquiries by telephone: 697 0605, 697 4705, 697 9578