The Hermitage Music Academy

In February 1994 the Hermitage announced that the St Petersburg Camerata had become the official orchestra of the State Hermitage and thus obtained the highly distinctive status of orchestra to one of the world's largest museums. This event made possible the conception of the Hermitage Music Academy project.

The Hermitage Music Academy is a charitable programme embracing various forms in which musical art manifests itself - from chamber concerts and master-classes to great gala-performances. The programme provides an opportunity to hear the best modern masters and to become acquainted with new names. The Hermitage Theatre, museum rooms and courtyards great and small had become concert platforms that opened the Hermitage to the musical world.

The programme was inaugurated on 13 April 1997 in the St George Hall of the Winter Palace. It opened with Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation performed by the State Hermitage Orchestra and the Smolny Cathedral Choir conducted by Sergei Stadler.

The year 1997 was also marked by the establishment of the Hermitage Music Academy сharitable foundation. The director of the State Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky became chairman of the Board of Trustees, while the artistic director of the State Hermitage Orchestra and conductor Saulius Sondeckis and world-renowned figures from the arts Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin became members.

Since its establishment the Hermitage Music Academy foundation has been involved in the organization of more than 200 concerts featuring the State Hermitage Orchestra in the best concert halls in Russia and abroad. Concert series in the Hermitage Music Academy programme are operated with the participation of the foundation - "Debuts and Premieres in the Hermitage Theatre", "...only Mozart!", "All Beethoven's Symphonies in the Hermitage", "Remembrance of Venice" (the music of Antonio Vivaldi in the Hermitage rooms), "The World of Chamber Opera", and the annual international cultural project Tuba Mirum. The foundation organizes special free concerts for Hermitage staff, disabled people and orphaned children.

Since the year 2000, the foundation in conjunction with Russian Television has been presenting a series of concerts on the Kultura (Culture) and RTR (Russian Television & Radio Company) channels called The Hermitage Music Academy with Zoya Beliayeva as author and presenter.

Concerts organized by the foundation with the support of the Hermitage, the consulates of various foreign countries, commercial enterprises and banks, feature the finest orchestras and soloists from many European countries.

The artistic director of the Hermitage Music Academy programme is the director of the foundation, the composer Sergei Yevtushenko. The executive director is Eisuke Fujino from Japan.

This unique Hermitage programme has become and inseparable part of cultural life not only in the museum, but in St Petersburg as a whole.

The St Petersburg Camerata orchestra was created in 1989 by the prominent conductor Professor Saulius Sondeckis, People's Artist of the USSR, holder of the USSR State Prizes, winner of the first prize and Gold Medal in the Herbert von Karajan Foundation competition. In a brief time the musicians became one of the finest chamber orchestras in Russia. The St Petersburg Camerata has recorded several albums, toured successfully in many countries and participated in a number of international festivals.

The year 2002 saw the opening of a new cycle "The Musical Collections of the Hermitage" ("The Hemitage in the context of European musical culture of the 18th-20th centuries"). It is intended to revive works by composers who were well known and respected in their time and to add to the "collection" of contemporary music.

The Hermitage Music Academy has revived the celebrated tradition of "Hermitages" - gatherings of the court at which music was played. In 2002 special programmes began to operate in the evening that included an excursion around the museum and a concert in one of its rooms.

In 2002 five concerts were held within this programme, introducing music lovers to young, talented performers. The concerts were carried out jointly with the Mariinsky Theatre's academy of young singers (artistic director Larisa Gergiyeva). The bills included popular classical music by foreign and Russian composers.

The artistic director of the Hermitage Music Academy programme is the director of the foundation of the same name, the composer Sergei Yevtushenko. The executive director of the programme is Eisuke Fujino of Japan. In 2002 Mrs Terumi Nishiuchi, head of the Japanese company Mana Creation, became honorary president of the programme.

This unique Hermitage programme has become a part of life not only for the museum, but for St Petersburg as a whole.