On 24 October 2016, the Atrium of the General Staff became the setting for the first concert evening of a joint programme between the Hermitage and the Leningrad Dixieland band led by Honoured Artist of Russia Oleg Kuvaitsev.
This was a highly unusual event in a genre for which a name has yet to be invented – not a lecture as they are usually given in the Hermitage, but also not a concert by a jazz band as can be heard in venues around St Petersburg. The musical improvisations by the celebrated Dixieland ensemble took place in a dialogue with Picasso’s Cubist paintings, which appeared on a screen. The music took its cue from the painting, was superimposed on it, argued and agreed with it… The leader of Dixieland, Oleg Kuvaitsev, and the Hermitage lecturer, Liudmila Torshina, assisted this “dialogue” through simply conducting one of their own, talking to one another, and almost of its own accord something emerged that might be called “the creation of free artists”, “the art and music of free people”. And the Hermitage audience that packed the Atrium staircase, turned into an auditorium for the evening, joined in this performance of music and painting with their own lively reaction.
The next concert evening in this unusual “jazz–art-history” genre will take place on Monday, 21 November, at 7 pm.
