The XVII Yuri Bashmet International Music Festival will be held at nine venues in the region.

This was announced by the Governor of the Yaroslavl region Mikhail Evraev.

– Yuri Bashmet will once again hold an international music festival in the Yaroslavl Region. It will be the 17th and will be dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War," Mikhail Evraev said. – Each visit of the maestro is a significant cultural event for our region. The program of the festival is designed so that the audience can hear world masterpieces of classical music and get acquainted with modern compositions and young performers.

This year, concerts and performances will be held in Yaroslavl, Rybinsk, Rostov Veliky, Uglich, Gavrilov-Yama, Vyatskoye village and Nekrasovskoye settlement.

For 17 years, the Yaroslavl Festival has gained a reputation as one of the largest international musical events in Russia and has become a project truly loved by the public from all over our country.

Every year, music fans from different regions of Russia and abroad come to Yaroslavl, knowing that an impeccably structured program awaits them. The festival combines the best traditions of academic and modern music, jazz rhythms, Baroque masterpieces and world musical trends.

Among the key functions of the Yaroslavl Festival, a special place is occupied by the educational mission and the discovery of new names. Thanks to the festival, the Russian public got to know many world stars of the academic scene for the first time, including the Oscar-winning Chinese composer Tang Dong.

The festival consistently serves as a creative laboratory: its stage regularly becomes a platform for world premieres of contemporary composers. It is no coincidence that Maestro Yuri Bashmet has repeatedly noted the Yaroslavl audience as one of the most receptive to new musical forms.

The special pride of the festival is its geography, thanks to which academic music is played in dozens of cities and towns, often for the first time in their history. Enlightenment and the expansion of cultural boundaries remain the most important components of the mission of this unique project.

This year's artists include actors Sergey Garmash, Evgeny Mironov, Maria Smolnikova, Igor Kostolevsky, Sergey Shakurov, Chaowen Lo (violin, China), Pavel Milyukov (violin), Alexander Knyazev (cello), Peter Lundstrom (violin), Grant Bashmet (violin), Dmitry Masleev (piano), Elmira Karakhanova (soprano), Anna Yurkus (mezzo-soprano), David Posulikhin (tenor), Nikolai Zemlyanskikh (baritone), Grigory Shkarupa (bass), Maria Zaitseva (cello), Ksenia Bashmet(piano), Valeria Abramova (violin), Sofia Wieland (flute), A.m.A.D.I.S. Brass (Republic of Belarus), Chamber Orchestra of the Honored Collective of Russia of the Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Beijing Contemporary Soloists (China), Philharmonic Choral Capella "Yaroslaviya".

Maestro Bashmet himself will also participate both as a soloist and as a conductor of three of his ensembles: the All-Russian Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Novaya Rossiya State Symphony Orchestra and the Grammy Award-winning Moscow Soloists Chamber Ensemble.

In addition, by creating the future, the festival will pay tribute to the memory and the past. Russian Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky's 185th birthday, Alfred Schnittke's 90th birthday, the 100th birthday of legendary violinist Leonid Kogan, and the 80th anniversary of Victory, one of the most important events of every Russian person. in the Great Patriotic War.

The opening gala concert of the festival took place on May 10 on the stage of the Millennium Concert and Entertainment Center and was dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. This evening, the Requiem by the modern composer Kuzma Bodrov based on poems by Robert Rozhdestvensky, as well as songs from the war years, was performed. Requiem was written specifically by order of Maestro Bashmet and the Russian Concert Agency back in 2021, and since then it has always evoked a strong emotional response from both the audience and the artists themselves. The reciter is People's Artist of the Russian Federation Sergey Garmash, and together with Maestro Bashmet and the All-Russian Youth Symphony Orchestra, talented singers Elmira Karakhanova (soprano), Anna Yurkus (mezzo-soprano), David Posulikhin (tenor), Nikolai Zemlyanskikh (baritone) and the Philharmonic Choral Capella Yaroslaviya performed.

On May 11, on the stage of the Russian State Academic Drama Theater named after F.Volkova – premiere of the festival: performance-concert "Laughter visible to the world and tears unknown to it", dedicated to the 90th anniversary of composer Alfred Schnittke. The production, directed by Marina Brusnikina, is based on "Gogol Suite" by Alfred Schnittke and the novella "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol.Maestro Yuri Bashmet is at the conductor's desk of the New Russia Orchestra, and with the acting duo of Evgeny Mironov and Maria Smolnikova, he will present an author's fantasy program based on the famous plot of "Dead Souls." The maestro had a real friendship and fruitful cooperation with Alfred Schnittke.

"I am sure that this new musical performance will become a huge event in the cultural life of Yaroslavl. This is exactly how I would like to celebrate my close friend's 90th birthday," Maestro Bashmet notes.

The concert on the stage of the Yaroslavl Philharmonic on May 12 will be dedicated to the 185th anniversary of the birth of the most famous Russian composer in the world, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The program of his compositions, together with Maestro Bashmet and the New Russia Orchestra, will be presented by laureates of international competitions Dmitry Masleev (piano), Grigory Shkarupa (bass), Maria Zaitseva (cello), Valeria Abramova (violin) and Sofia Wieland (flute).

On May 13, an authentic Chinese band, Beijing Contemporary Soloists (artistic director – composer Kin Wencheng), will arrive in Yaroslavl for the first time. Its concise program combines national Chinese instruments and music by contemporary authors.

On May 14, the Brass Ensemble of the Bolshoi Theater of the Republic of Belarus "A.M.A.D.I.S. Brass" will perform in Yaroslavl for the first time, and on May 15, the Chamber Orchestra of the Honored Collective of Russia of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Nikolai Alekseev.

On May 16, an evening of romantic sonatas for cello and piano performed by Alexander Knyazev, People's Artist of the Russian Federation and famous cellist of our time, and Ksenia Bashmet, pianist, will be presented to the public. The program of the evening includes music by Brahms and Strauss. And this concert will be held in Rybinsk on May 15.

May 17 – the premiere of the festival is back: the performance-concert "When Love came to you" based on Yuri Kazakov's short story "Blue and Green". The writer Yuri Kazakov is a unique phenomenon in Soviet literature, his lyrical, simple and pure intonation is fascinating. And Igor Kostolevsky's talented reading of his text and Yuri Bashmet's interesting and diverse musical solution, a combination of beautiful words and music, will surely make every viewer remember and relive the amazing feeling of first love. Igor Kostolevsky, Yuri Bashmet, and the Moscow Soloists Chamber Ensemble will take part in the performance. Soloists: Ksenia Bashmet (piano), Grant Bashmet (violin).

The closing gala concert of the festival on May 18 will be dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding violinist, "Soviet Paganini" Leonid Kogan, whose international recognition has become an additional proof of the unattainable height of the Russian violin school. Violinists Pavel Milyukov, Chaowen Lo (China), Grant Bashmet and Peter Lundstrom will honor the memory of the great musician. Maestro Bashmet will take his place at the conductor's desk of the Moscow Soloists Chamber Ensemble.

Concerts within the framework of the festival will be held not only in Yaroslavl, but also in the cities of the Yaroslavl region. Maestro Bashmet and the Moscow Soloists will personally visit Rostov Veliky on May 14 and Pereslavl-Zalessky on May 16. And on May 15, a series of chamber concerts performed by members of the Moscow Soloists ensemble will be held in cities such as Gavrilov-Yam and Uglich, as well as in the village of Nekrasovskoye.

Traditionally, a lot of attention at maestro festivals is paid to educational projects. The International Brass Academy will be developed, within the framework of which, for the eighth time in Yaroslavl, master classes on brass and wooden wind instruments and master classes in other specialties will be held as part of the work of the Yuri Bashmet Educational Center. For the seventh time, a school of young journalists covering cultural events and academic art in regional media will be held on May 13 as part of the festival.

Over the 17 years of its existence, the Festival has become a full-fledged symbol of spring Yaroslavl, attracting guests with a variety of festival programs and the highest level of their implementation. And also – the unique atmosphere that everyone feels who becomes a part of the festival events.