On 1 June 2023, an inclusive programme entitled “Musical Promenades” was carried out at the State Hermitage’s Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre timed to mark the International Day for Protection of Children.
The participants in the event were children with special health needs and their parents, wards of charitable foundations and residential homes for children, families with many children and low-income families. The occasion was organized by the State Hermitage in conjunction with the Art-parkING Centre for Modern Technologies in Art.
The young audience was treated to a concert that featured Sergei Prokofiev’s symphonic fairy tale Peter and the Wolf, Joseph Haydn’s Toy Symphony, John Bratton’s Teddy Bears’ Picnic and Johann Strauss’s Egyptian March. The works were performed by winners of international competitions: Ekaterina Stadler, Lyudmila Kolyago, Natalia Shamshuro, Dmitry Makhovikov and Viacheslav Tarasov.
The concert was followed by guided tours of the open-storage facility of the Restoration and Storage Centre, The participants were acquainted with this unique way of presenting museum exhibits, when visitors see not only the cultural artefacts but also the way that they are kept and studied. The children spent time in the Carriage Hall viewing the imperial ceremonial conveyances and saw the collection of Western European and Russian furniture, oriental textiles, including a sumptuous 18th-century Turkish tent, and much more.
The “Musical Promenades” are an inclusive project for children with special health needs and other youngsters held in the form of open-air concerts at the museum-and-park ensembles of Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Region, as well as inside museums and libraries. In 2022, the Promenades had a total audience of more than 450 families.
The institutions participating in the project are the State Hermitage, the State Russian Museum, the Gatchina State Museum-Preserve, the Sheremetev Palace, the Priyutino Estate Museum, the Kirov Central Park of Culture and Recreation, the branch of the Mayakovsky Library in Sevcable Port, the Pushkin Central Children’s Library, the “Treasure Island” Children’s Library No 11 and the Historical and Cultural Museum Complex in Razliv.
