Press releases

MINSK, 11 September (BelTA) – The piano virtuoso Aleksei Volodin is going to give a solo performance at the 12th Yuri Bashmet International Festival in Minsk on 29 September, BelTA learned from the forum’s art director, the famous Belarusian pianist and conductor Rostislav Krimer.

The musician will come to Minsk for the first time to play a concert as part of the Legends of Piano program during the Yuri Bashmet festival. The program comprises a series of concerts, namely eight Medtner’s fairy tales, Sergei Prokofiev’s Sonata No.3, and Sergei Rachmaninov’s Sonata No.1.

Aleksei Volodin, 40, is a St Petersburg native. He started learning piano when he was nine. When he moved to Moscow, he went to Gnessins Special School of Music and the Moscow Conservatory, where his teacher was the renowned Eliso Virsaladze.

Winner of numerous prestigious international contests, Aleksei Volodin became one of the world’s most popular pianists after he had won the Geza Anda International Piano Competition in Zurich, Switzerland. He performs in the best halls, including London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Philharmonie de Paris and the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. In 2007, he was an exclusive artist of Steinway&Sons, one of the world’s best piano makers. His partners were conductors Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Marek Janowski, the Borodin Quartet, violin players Julian Rachlin and Janine Jansen, and cellist Mischa Maisky.

Aleksei Volodin takes great pleasure in performing at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre. This is where his “Beethoven Marathon” took place: the artist played all of Beethoven’s concerts and played the famous program entitled Shakespeare in Music. Volodin’s repertoire is literally infinite, which enables him to take a new role every concert.

Add it to brilliant technique, mellow tone, colorful and fresh interpretations and you will understand why Volodin is hailed as a virtuoso and thinker and is compared with Richter and Rachmaninov.

“We are happy to welcome such a prominent pianist as Aleksei Volodin after we received such masters as Paul Badura-Skoda, Barry Douglas, Nikolai Lugansky,” Rostislav Krimer said.

As BelTA reported earlier, the grand opening of the 12th Yuri Bashmet International Festival will take place in the Big Hall of the Belarusian State Philharmonic on 27 September. The opening concert will see performances of Russia’s State Symphony Orchestra Novaya Rossiya directed by People’s Artist of the USSR and Russia Yuri Bashmet. The East-West Chamber Orchestra will give two performances, too. Taking the stage together with the East-West Chamber Orchestra on 4 October will be three soloists: the world-known accordionist Ksenia Sidorova, the laureate of the International Tchaikovsky Competition David Geringas (cello, Germany), and Massimo Mercelli (flute, Italy).

The second concert of East-West Chamber Orchestra at the Yuri Bashmet Festival will take place during the closing ceremony on 8 October. The soloist of the program Legends on Stradivarius Violin is the outstanding violinist Julian Rachlin.