CULTURE

Music at the museum

The State Hermitage is set to play host to an innovative musical festival mixing classical and jazz.

By Galina Stolyarova

The St. Petersburg Times

For The St. Petersburg Times Italian jazz duo Musica Nuda will be performing at the Hermitage Theater on Feb. 27.

Already famous for its rich art collection, the State Hermitage Museum also appears to be overflowing with original ideas at present. A performance by Finland’s Tapiola Sinfonietta chamber orchestra under the baton of Oleg Snetkov will herald the opening of the Seventh International Musical Hermitage Festival on Saturday.

Running through the end of February and fusing jazz, belcanto and baroque music in its playbill, Musical Hermitage encompasses a series of chamber concerts and jazz evenings in the Hermitage Theater, as well as in the Glinka Chamber Philharmonic Hall and the State Academic Cappella. The event’s international participation is by no means modest, with musicians and ensembles from Italy, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden and Germany joining their Russian counterparts.

Founded in 1988, the Tapiola Sinfonietta has evolved into one of the most distinguished chamber ensembles in Europe. The company’s extensive repertoire ranges from baroque music to contemporary works by living composers. Saturday’s concert at the Hermitage Theater with a program of Mozart and Mendelssohn will mark the orchestra’s first performance in Russia.

Among the concerts of particular interest is a recital by mega-star British countertenor Michael Chance and Musical Petropolitana soloists Dmitry Sokolov (cello) and Irina Shneerova (harpsichord) on Feb. 26. The celebrated British singer will perform a program of Handel, Bach, Monteverdi and Vivaldi.

Winner of the prestigious Grammy award for his participation in Handel’s Semele (where he sang Athamas) for Deutsche Grammophon with John Nelson and Kathleen Battle, Michael Chance maintains a globe-trotting schedule, with his engagements taking him to Vienna, Amsterdam, New York, Buenos Aires and Sydney. Chance’s vast repertoire includes operas by Handel, Gluck and Montverdi, Elizabethan lute songs and new works written especially for the singer by composers as diverse as Tan Dun and Elvis Costello.

According to The Guardian newspaper, “Despite the abundance of younger star countertenors these days, none of them yet match Chance’s intelligent delivery and supreme ability to get inside the English language.”

“The pivotal figure, on stage and in Britten’s score, is Oberon,” reads another review in The Guardian, describing Chance’s appeareance in Peter Hall’s 2001 staging of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Glyndebourne festival. “Michael Chance is a seasoned exponent of what is still the best countertenor role since Handel’s time, and every word, every malicious intention is crystal clear.”

More baroque music comes from the Ensemble Cordevento which will perform a program of French, German and Italian music from the 16th to 18th centuries at the Hermitage Theater on Feb. 23. The internationally renowned Dutch trio — Eric Bosgraaf (block flute), Izhar Elias (guitar) and Alessandro Pianu (guitar) — recently created a sensation at Amsterdam’s Annual Music Festival on the Canals.

“Izhar Elias is a musician of outstanding ability, whose unique approach to his art betrays a maturity beyond his years,” reads a 2006 review in Classical Guitar Magazine.

Virtuoso French violinist and conductor Pierre Amoyal, who has performed alongside Herbert von Karajan, Ozawa, Pierre Boulez, Lorin Maazel, George Solti, Gennady Roshdestvensky and Simon Rattle, will conduct the Camerata de Lausanne Orchestra in a program featuring Tartini, Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn at the Glinka Philharmonic Chamber Hall on Feb. 22.

“A genius…the beauty of his sound, a transcendent technique…everything is united so that Pierre Amoyal profoundly moves us as soon as his bow touches the strings of his Stradivarius,” reads a review in Le Figaro.

The musician plays one of the most beautiful violins in history, the famous “Kochanski,” a Stradivarius that was stolen from him in 1987, and then miraculously recovered and returned to Amoyal four years later by the Italian police.

The spectacular Italian jazz duo Musica Nuda, which features singer Petra Magoni and double bassist Ferruccio Spinetti, will present a contemporary jazz evening at the Hermitage Theater on Feb. 27, while on Feb. 21, the State Academic Capella will host a jazz duel between the Moscow Art Trio and the Petersburg Modern Trio.

The festival closes on Feb. 28 at the Hermitage Theater with a Belcanto Evening. A string of laureates of the Spoleto Competition for Young Opera Singers will perform popular arias by Italian composers alongside the St. Petersburg Academic Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Swedish conductor Mats Liljefors.

www.hermitagemuseum.ru

More stories by this section:

For freedom | Chernov’s choice | Belarussian sitcom | Indian victory

Or take part in the discussion below.