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Olga Rostropovich, the Festival's creative director
This year well hold the third Rostropovich Festival.
This year would have been his 85th birthday, and it is also the 5th anniversary of his demise.
So this year our festival will be very special.
We are broadening the festivals geographic borders as well as prolonging it.
It will be held from May 27 to April 27 in Moscow as well as in other cities
that played a role in my fathers life: Voronezh, Saratov, Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod.
Ill start with announcing the event that has been anticipated by us all for a long time:
the monument to Rostropovich created by sculptor Rukovishnikov
and architect Voskresensky will be opened in Brusov Pereulok in Moscow on March 27
after a solemn requiem that will begin in 12.00.
At least we hope it will be so.
The same day we open the Festival with a musical offering to Shostakovich.
The opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District will be performed:
this piece was very important for my dad.
He conducted it in 1996 after it hadnt been performed for 60 years.
For March 28 Ive invited the Nizhny Novgorod orchestra.
This symphony orchestra is named after my father.
This is a wonderful orchestra; they performed at the Baku Rostropovich festival with great success recently,
but surprisingly their last visit to Moscow dates back to 2003.
I thought it fit to invite them here in the year of my fathers anniversary.
We all know how my father cherished young talents, so I offered a brilliant young cellist,
Rostropovich scholarship holder Vsevolod Gusov,
to play with the orchestra the Elgar concerto for orchestra and cello,
and a young Korean violinist, who won first place at Venyavsky contest in Poland.
She performed successfully at the latest festival in Baku.
I think it will be very interesting.
On April 1-2 London Philharmonic Orchestra headed by Vladimir Yurovsky will perform.
Here I would like to speak about the second concert, which will take place on April 2,
though at the first concert Rudolf Buchbinder, a splendid pianist, will solo.
On April 2 we will devote the concert to Prokofiev.
It will be very special.
As you know Egyptian Nights were composed by Prokofiev after Tairovs request.
He met Prokofiev in Paris and asked him to compose music for Tairovs planned performance Egyptian Nights.
This performance should be consisted of works by Bernard Show, Shakespeare and Pushkin.
Tairov was interested in this theme, as he saw parallels in relations with Queen Elizabeth and her favorite.
He thought it would be interesting to reflect the stories of Shaw and Shakespeare at the current reality.
Prokofiev liked the idea, he came to Russia.
It was his first work composed in Russia after his migration to France.
It was in 1934.
Later the Chamber Theatre was closed.
Since 1934 Egyptian Nights have never been played how it would be played at our festival.
Orchestration for the movie Ivan Grozny will be performed.
There was only one orchestration by Abram Stasevich in 1961.
But recently the musical score by Levon Avtomyan, who was the closest friend of Prokofiev, has been found.
He made adaptations of his symphonies for fortepiano.
Neli Kravets, musicologist, has found this musical paper, which had never been played.
This orchestration will be performed for the first time by London Symphonic Orchestra
and Vladimir Yurovski at our festival.
On April 14th we will welcome Orchestre de Paris and its new head Paavo Jarvi.
They will present works by Straus and Shubert.
April 21st is a very important day for me, as it will be a great return.
Maxim Vengerov had close relations with my father,
and after his death in 2007 Maxim had stopped playing violin.
He wanted to be a conductor, moreover, he had problems with arm.
And now several years after it, he has returned to the stage.
Maxim has already played concerts in Moscow, but I think our festival will be his great return.
The works, which he will perform, are very serious, and I wish him great success.
So I think it will be very interesting.
On April 25th we will open the exhibition devoted to Rastropovich and Vishnevskaya Mingling of Fates.
This exhibition will take place in Glinka Museum.
Unique items will be exhibited: papers, private things, masterpieces.
On April 26-27 Orchestra Santa Chichilias headed by Antonio Papano comes to us.
It is an outstanding orchestra.
And we close the festival on April 27th.
Juji Wong will play the Third Concert by Prokofiev.
Last year she failed to come to us, because of bad weather, and Denis Matsuev substituted her.
This year she should come.
At the moment we are holding talks with Patriarch Kirill,
for he services requiem at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral on April 27th.
That will be our closing.
We will conduct our festival abroad too.
In Kornberg, Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany and the USA.
In December the festival in Baku will be opened.
Traditionally it will be opened by performance of the Azerbaijani Orchestra.
Various orchestras from different countries will play at this festival.
I also want to bring a puppet theatre there, as father loved puppets very much.
It will be an Italian puppet theater, which performed great plays, so you forget these are puppets.
The Rostropovich Symphonic Orchestra will come from Nizhny Novgorod.
It will play two concerts.
First will include works by Prokofiev.
The second concert is something special: three tenors.
So I think it would be an interesting festival.