Well-known Festival Hvorostovsky and Friends debuts in Minsk

The International Hvorostovsky and Friends concert has been held in Moscow and St. Petersburg since 2005, proving popular with critics and fans of classical music. The role call of prestigious participants speaks for itself, including such opera singers as American Renée Fleming, Korean Sumi Jo (who holds a Grammy award), Germany’s Jonas Kaufmann, and Russian Yekaterina Syurina, Ildar Abdrazakov, Alexey Dolgov and Aida Garifulina. Many more have appeared on stage with Dmitry Hvorostovsky.

Performing worldwide, maestro Hvorostovsky is an ambassador for Russian classical art, as enjoyed by millions of people. His concert festival is being held at the beginning of March, on Minsk’s leading stages, opening with A Piano Evening with Chopin, featuring Chinese pianist Yundi.

Recognised worldwide for his skill and talent, Yundi began his international career in 2000 after receiving the ultimate prize at the International F. Chopin Competition in Warsaw. At the age of 18, he was the youngest ever winner of this competition and the first Chinese citizen to have done so. Moreover, he was the first performer in fifteen years to be honoured with the competition’s Grand-Prix. He is considered to be one of the best interpreters of Chopin’s works.

A major concert of soloists is also planned, featuring Honoured Artiste of Belarus Oksana Volkova, and sisters Marina and Miriam Costa-Jackson from the Metropolitan Opera in New York, performing on stage with the maestro. The concert programme will include most loved opera arias and works inspired by Russian poets R. Rozhdestvensky, N. Dobronravova and E. Yevtushenko, accompanied by the State Academic Symphonic Orchestra of Belarus.

The well-known Costa-Jackson sisters will be performing in Belarus for the first time. Leading voices with the Metropolitan Opera, the magnificent sopranos learnt from the Italian and American masters. Miriam, who began signing at the age of 12, is praised for ‘singing from the heart, and only then by voice’. Marina is a resident of the American Academy of Vocal Arts and has sung the role of Liza (Verdi’s Queen of Spades), Amelia (Un Ballo di Maschera), Mimì (Puccini’s La Bohème) and Marguerite (Faust, by Gounod).

The wonderful event concludes with a Belarusian premiere performance of Rodin, by the St. Petersburg Eifman Ballet, devoted to the life and creativity of great sculptor Auguste Rodin and his disciple, mistress and muse, Camille Claudel. The tragic and passionate love story will be shown at the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus.

Dance allows an artiste to communicate on a deep level with audiences, expressing every emotion and the eternal search for life’s meaning and truths, showing the collision of the spiritual and carnal.