Pushkin's great city is being brought to life for the coming generation through a festival that focuses on St Petersburg's traditions of musical excellence.
Last Sunday, March 24, saw the opening of the "Hymn to a Great City" festival with a symphony concert in the Shostakovich Philharmonia Grand Hall that featured works by Prokofiev, Banevich and Glazunov alongside Gliere's "Hymn to a Great City" piece.
Gliere wrote the piece that gives this Seventh Annual International Children's Festival its name as an accompaniment to Pushkin's epic poem "The Bronze Horseman."
Organizers designed this year's festival to honor the city's place in the musical world as home to many of Russia's greatest composers.
Concert director Lyubov Vvedenskaya said the festival has several goals.
In addition to emphasizing St Petersburg's place in the world "as a center of musical enlightenment," the festival aims to recognize and support young talent, as well as bring classical music and composition to children in a form which they will enjoy and understand.
In keeping with this goal, the festival is highlighted by such events as an international children's piano duet competition titled "Brother and Sister," attracting children from all over Russia and the CIS; meetings with contemporary Russian composers, a concert of the young composers' competition titled "I am a Composer," and a series of concerts and other events at the House of Composers (45 Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa).
Of special interest for parents and other adults is a concert in the Large Hall of the Philharmonia on March 29 entitled "Music of Petersburg," featuring the music of St Petersburg composers from Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich to the present; as well as a March 30 concert in the Chamber Hall of the Philharmonia entitled "St Petersburg Tales" (after Gogol's collection of short stories) featuring works of contemporary Russian composers and the St Petersburg boys' choir.
The festival includes several lectures, among them "The Composer and the Computer" given by composer Stanislav Nazhov on March 28 (12 noon) at the House of Composers.
In addition, an exhibition featuring children's' works will be on at the House of Composers throughout the festival.
The name of this year's festival reflects the important role St Petersburg has and continues to play in the Russian musical world, said Leonid Gakkel, a renowned professor of composition at the St Petersburg Conservatoire.
The two have become utterly dependent on one another he said -- Russian music without St Petersburg is impossible to imagine, as many great Russian composers studied at the conservatory and wrote some of their greatest works here. But, he added, at the same time, the city's mystique and atmosphere would not be the same without the many works which have been dedicated to it.
The event will take place in the Large and Chamber Halls of the Philharmonia, the Glinka Cappella, the House of Composers and the Children's Philharmonia.