The 10th International Festival Great Waltz

On 12 July, 2011 the press-conference, dedicated to the opening of the 10th International Festival Great Waltz, was held.

In 2011 Great Waltz Festival is 10 years. As in previous years it will be held in the State Hermitage and the State Museum-Preserves Peterhof, Pavlovsk and Tsarskoye Selo. The festival program, which takes place from 15 to 25 July, 2011, includes evenings of symphonic and chamber, instrumental and vocal music, evenings of ballet.

Masters, having already left a considerable mark in history of music culture: soloists of Viennese opera Michael Heim and Marchella Cherno, Swiss conductor Reto Parolari and famous Russian conductors Alexander Kantorov, Alexey Karabanov, Dmitry Khokhlov, Igor Ponomarenko and Svyatoslav Luther, famous pianist Pyotr Laul will appear in the concerts. People’s Artist of the USSR Yelena Obraztsova with her favorite students will present a concert-premiere An Evening with Prima Donna. Soloists of Mariinsky and Mikhailovsky Theaters will give Gala-Concert on the stage of the Hermitage Theater. The festival will be participated by the best orchestras of St Petersburg: the State Symphony Orchestra Classica, the State Symphony Orchestra of St Petersburg, the Admiralty Orchestra of the Leningrad Naval Base and the Andreyev State Russian Orchestra.

The support of the festival was rendered by the Bank of Moscow JSC which has already formed partnership relations with the State Hermitage. One of the priority areas of activity of the Bank of Moscow in St Petersburg is preservation of cultural heritage of the Northern capital. It is the fifth joint festival of the Bank of Moscow and the State Hermitage which revives traditions of arts patronage and gives an opportunity to turn our contemporaries to the rich spiritual heritage.

Festival Great Waltz gives a unique opportunity to turn back time and to make a journey for over than one hundred years ago. In the mid of 30s of the 19th century the first railway in Russia, joining firstly Tsarskoye Selo with Pavlovsk and then with St Petersburg was built. In May 1838 the building of Pavlovsky railway station was opened. A large stone construction with splayed semi-circular wings by its sizes, decoration, abundance and diversity of room was far beyond common ideas about a railway station. Everything was made here in order to attract the audience for long hours of agreeable pastime: at the railway station there was not only a restaurant. Garden with fountains for rest but also a large concert hall, meant for several hundreds of people. The history of Pavlovsk musical railway station began with entertaining music: waltzes, polkas, gallops, marches but soon interests of the listeners turned to more serious symphonic genres. Feodor Chaliapin, Ivan Yershov, Alexander Glazunov, Anatoly Lyadov and many others took part in musical seasons in Pavlovsk.

However, in the first place summer musical seasons are related to Johann Strauss, a great Austrian who performed in Pavlovsk during sixteen years from 1856 to 1872.

A number of concerts in Great Waltz Festival - eleven - correspond to the number of seasons, spent by Strauss in St Petersburg. The name Great Waltz is borrowed from the similar-named American movie (1938 year, director Julien Duvivier), dedicated to life and creative work of the composer.

Chairman of the Committee of Honor of the Festival is Director of the State Hermitage, Chairman of Inter-Regional Non-Governmental Organization Creative Union of Museum Workers of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region Mikhail Piotrovsky, author of the idea and Artistic Director of the Festival is Director’s Advisor Julia Kantor. Official Partner of the Festival is Producer Center Domus, LLC. General Producer is Maria Musienko.

At the press-conference in the Hermitage Theater

Julia Kantor, Artistic Director of the Festival

Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage

Thomas Aigner, Director of the Vienna Musical Assembly

Alexander Volkov, Director of
St Petersburg Branch of the Bank of Moscow, JSC

Alexay Karabanov, conductor