The "Grand Waltz" International Music Festival in St Petersburg

In the mid-1830's the first Russian railway was built connecting St Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo, then it was extended to Pavlovsk. A railway spur line went straight to the section of the park called the Great Star, where the Music Station was erected. Here a tradition of concerts for the general public was born. Here they played compositions by famous Russian composers and, of course, by the "waltz king," Johann Strauss. He brought the irreplaceable charm of Vienna music into Petersburg cultural life and facilitated the spiritual rapprochement of the cultural elite of the two countries. The "Strauss seasons" helped to integrate Russia into the cultural life of the West. This tradition of summer music seasons, which was interrupted by 1917, has been resumed at the turn of the 21st century. The Festival is being organized in St Petersburg for the third time, resurrecting a link across the ages that had been severed.

Eleven concerts (2 July - 12 July 2004) - one for each of the summer seasons Strauss spent in Petersburg - will be given in the Hermitage Theater, the International (Konstantinovsky) Palace of Congresses, the Great Palace of Petehof, the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo, and, of course, in the Rose Pavilion of Pavlovsk, where the great Austrian composer himself conducted. All of these venues are members of the Inter-Regional Public Organization called the "Creative Alliance of Museum Employees of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast." The Festival is one way in which these museums are strengthening the ties uniting them and widening the scope of museum work.

Each concert will not merely "copy" programs from the Strauss seasons but will develop the traditions of intimate scale music-making for the public. The genres of the concerts combine evenings of symphonic music, vocal music and literary -musical evenings. In addition to the well known works of Strauss and his contemporaries, who were called the "Strauss circle," there will be works by the "waltz king" which were never before performed in Russia. All the romances of Olga Smirnitskaya, a Russian who fell in love with Straus, will also be performed for the first time.

Strauss passed the creative baton to the great Russian composer Mikhail Glinka, whose concerts in Pavlovsk in the 19th century continued this tradition of musical evenings. For this reason, on the 200th anniversary of Glinka's birth, the Festival program has included a concert entitled "From Strauss to Glinka."

Among those taking part in the concerts are famous Russian and foreign musicians, the orchestras of the Mariinsky and Hermitage theaters, soloists of the Mariinsky Theater including the world renowned opera star Anna Netrebko, Dean of the Petersburg Conservatory Sergey Roldugin, and the celebrated Austrian conductor Christian Pollak, who is a specialist on authentic performances of Strauss's music.

The Chairman of the Honorary Festival Committee is Director of the State Hermitage , Academician Mikhail Piotrovsky, who is also Chairman of the Inter-Regional Public Organization, the "Creative Alliance of Museum Employees of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast." The artistic director and originator of the idea for the "Grand Waltz" Festival is Advisor to the Director of the State Hermitage Yulia Kantor. General Sponsor of the Festival for the third year in succession is the Petersburg PromStroyBank.

At the press-conference at the Hermitage Theater

Yulia Kantor, Artistic Director of the Grand Waltz Festival