The best of them will also perform at the “We Gather Friends” festival which is now underway in the Rachmaninoff concert hall of the conservatory.
The Moscow conservatory is a well-known foundry of stars of classical music. Although the academic school year is over, the conservatory is not closed for summer offering summer courses to music students from Europe, Asia and the US. The Moscow Conservatory is internationally known for its system of music education. The lessons in summer school are based on this system which is the main reason why so many young foreign musicians come to study there, Italian pianist Andrea Azzolini said in an interview with the “Voice of Russia”.
Shino Hotta from Japan, who has been teaching music for 14 years, said she had come to Moscow to improve her professional level.
From July 31 till August 28, the conservatory holds the festival “We Gather Friends”. The festival’s goal is to let foreign music students to learn more about the conservatory and the Russian culture in general during their short stay in Moscow, the festival art director Margarita Karatygina says.
"We receive many young foreign musicians so it was necessary to prepare a cultural program for them, to give them an opportunity to gain professional experience and get new impressions. The festival is also a great tool to demonstrate the level of the Conservatory. People who come here for studying can see how our teachers, students and postgraduates play in concerts and set a kind of benchmark for themselves."
Apart from the music program the festival’s organizers decided to create a communication venue for young musicians from different countries, where they can socialize.
"This simple name “We Gather Friends” actually reflects the essence of the festival, Margarita Karatygina continues. Among its participants there are many students from academies and colleges, which are partners of the Moscow conservatory. In summer it is very convenient for these academies and colleges to send their students and postgraduates to Moscow to let them play here. The festival’s participants are mainly young musicians."
This year the festival was opened by the concerts of the Hannover Boys Choir, which performed music of the European and Russian composers and the Brazil choir which represented the choral music of South America. The festival’s program is rich of such parallels and contrasts. It includes concerts of the London Royal College students, who perform academic music and also performances of the musicians from India and Japan who play bamboo flutes. “Even real monks, the followers of Zen-Buddhism take part in our festival, Margarita Karatygina says. What they show is rather a specific meditation accompanied by the sounds of fluterather than a concert performance. By tradition the students of the Summer school will also perform in one of the festival’s concerts.
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