Picasso and music

Moscow, Russia - Nov 22, 2004: In Moscow on the 29th November 2004, at the Pushkin Museum of fine Arts the State symphony Capela and Orchestra of Russia conducted by Valery Polianski will perform in world premier Dimitri Arapis’s “Picasso” symphony.

The Pushkin Museum is hosting the World exhibition of Picasso’s paintings contributed from the Museums of Stuttgart, Paris, Rome, Barcelona and Moscow.

The same evening the Pushkin Museum is opening its doors to the International musical festival “December evenings of Sviatoslav Richter”. The Festival is directed by Yuri Baschmet, founder and director of the Soloists of Moscow. Bashmet born in 1953 in Rostov-on-Don in Russia has succeeded the gigantic S. Richter after his death in 1997.

Richter and Irina Antonova, the director of the Pushkin Museum since 1961 and bearer of Russian orders and French Commander Order of literature and Arts – laureate of State Prize (1935), created in 1981 the idea of the festival “December evenings” directed by Richter and with specific endeavour to illustrate and promote the antiresonance of fine arts with music and the emergence of inspiration from one art out of the other.

Pushkin Museum’s festival has been renamed by I. Antonova to “December evenings of Sviatoslav Richter” in the memory of her great friend after his death. Antonova was awarded in November 2004 together with Franco Zeffirelli the highest prize for their outmost contribution to cultural relations between Russia and Italy. The ceremony was held in the Kremlin and the awards were presented by president of Russia Vladimir Putin and president of Italy Sylvio Berlusconi.

The theme of this year’s festival is “Metamorphoses and Reflections” as it is very much in line with the main paintings of Picasso to be exhibited. Picasso himself was immensely occupied with the subject of the metamorphoses and reflections. (Vollard suite).

Arapis, creating already since 2002 a ballet inspired from Picasso and his art, was able to tackle the order of creating a dedicated symphonic piece for the gala opening of the exhibition and of the festival on the subject of “Picasso”. Subjects like the criminality and despair in war - interplay, the metamorphoses of the human sole and the reflection to the body, the different sections of the soul portrayed in a human face and more other are vivid in Picasso’s art and mainly in his cubist paintings where allegory, artistic exaggeration and sometimes simplicity of expression prevail. (Guernica, The weeping woman)

The composer has collaborated with maestro Polianski and the State symphony Orchestra of Russia on the 7th September 1997 when he presented his oratorio “Plato – the legend of the cave” under the auspices of the Russian Cultural Foundation and the Mayor of Moscow Yuri Lushkov at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory of Tchaikovsky during the cultural events of the Moscow 850 years anniversary.

Arapis has collaborated in Russia for the performance of his works with the Bolshoi ballet (M. Lavrovsky choreographies “To the memory of Galina Ulanova”), the Kremlin ballet (ballet “Zeus”), the Russian National Orchestra, the State Symphony Orchestra & Capela of Russia, the Bolshoi Theatre Symphony Orchestra for the performance of his symphony “Alexander the Great” and with artists like Nikolai Petrov, Alexey Bruni, Alexey Stepanov, Andrey Petrov, Vladimir Vasiliev (ballet sketches on “Alexander The Great”) and others.

The December evenings of Sviatoslav Richter festival will include names like Jan Carbarek, the Hagen quartet, Angela Hewitt, the Borodin quartet, Bernarda Fink and other world renowned musicians.

For more information, contact:

Dimitri D. Arapis
Email: grarapis@attglobal.net
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