The 3rd International Greater Hermitage Music Festival Concert

On 31 October, 2003, the Hermitage St. George Hall hosted a concert of the 3rd International Greater Hermitage Music Festival. Conducted by Wolfgang Goennenwein, the Ludwigsburg Festival orchestra and Madrigal Choir from Stuttgart performed Handel's Messiah and Brahms' German Requiem. Soloists included Letizia Scherrer, Maria Claudia Chappuis, Corbi Welch and Detler Roth.

The Greater Hermitage Music program was launched, when the Winter Palace's Main Gates were opened in a symbolic ceremony on 26 June, 2001, when 360 musicians from 6 European countries performed Krzysztof Penderecki's oratorium The Seven Gates of Jerusalem. Musicians from St. Petersburg, Germany, Sweden and Lithuania took part in the festival in June 2002, when it was called Vivat Hermitage! In July 2003, the festival got the name Carnival in Northern Venice; Katia Riciarelli and Lyubov Kazarnovskaya sang in the Big Courtyard, while spectators could take part in a stylized carnival.
Tours of German performers are sponsored by Daimler Chrysler.