The ХI International Conservatory Week Festival
21 – 28 October 2011, Saint Petersburg
International Conservatory Week festival, a unique international forum and one of the brightest and most extraordinary music projects in St. Petersburg, is entering into its second decade. In the past years, the festival has spoken in 38 languages, acquired international fame, twice won the Best International Project of the Year competition, presented more than 160 international higher schools of music to the St. Petersburg music experts and fans, discovered hundreds of young composers and performers, and introduced the pedagogical mastery of prominent Russian and foreign music professors.
International Conservatory Week festival remains loyal to its main mission; to consolidate the representatives of the best Russian and foreign higher music schools on its stage, and to facilitate the mutual enrichment of different cultures and the integration of St. Petersburg conservatory into the international musical process. During a period tortuous for academic music, the festival raises the prestige of a professional musician’s craft and at that remains open for new themes and creative ideas, which has allowed it for eleven years to occupy a solid spot on the festival show bill of the Northern Capital, and draw the interest of young audiences and admirers from various social groups.
The exceptionally democratic format of the event defines the mixture of all kinds and genres of music interaction in the festival’s program; concerts, competitions, master classes, scientific conferences, exhibitions, seminars, open lectures, rehearsals, and presentations. Each year the international forum offers a new theme to its participants and audiences; dates and names significant to the history of the oldest music institution in Russia as well as remarkable Russian and foreign cultural events. The musical relationship between Russia and Italy and Spain will serve as the central theme of the new 2011 festival, which will give the representatives of various cultures an opportunity to get to know better the traditions and new developments in the fields of composition, performance and music education. Musicians from the higher schools in Milan and Perugia will be the Italian guests of the International Conservatory Week Festival and the Spanish music culture will be represented by the professors from Madrid.
First performances of new compositions by young and famous composers are one of the most notable traditions of the Conservatory Week. The Fall Carnival, an evening of first performances of international mini operas and ballets based on Italian and Spanish themes, created especially for the festival by young St. Petersburg composers will become a unique conservatory dedication to Italy and Spain. Original video and audio art presented during the evening, concerts of Jorn Qien Trio, will certainly draw the attention of young audiences.
Young musicians and professors from 22 higher schools based in Russia, USA, France, Germany, Poland, Finland, Israel, Armenia and Latvia will join the creative community yearly assembled by the Conservatory Week. Russian and foreign orchestras and choirs, ensembles and soloists well-known to the St. Petersburg audiences and those appearing for the first time will participate in the concerts. Nine famous conductors from Russia, USA, Italy and Germany will lead the festival programs and the laureates of the XIV Tchaikovsky International Competition will participate in the concerts. By the festival tradition concerts of various genres will be complemented by art expositions, which create a unique polyphony of sound and color intensifying the emotional experience of the audiences.
The festival is organized with the support of the Committee for Culture and the Committee for External Relations of St. Petersburg as well as the Board of Trustees of Embassies, Consulates General and Institutes of Culture representing their country’s higher schools of music at the festival.
