Tribute To Heroes of WWI Charity Concert

Novaya Rossiya State Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1990 by decree of the Russian Government. In 2002, Yuri Bashmet became the orchestra's Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, opening a new page in the ensemble's history. 

The orchestra has collaborated with renowned conductors and soloists, including Valery Gergiev, Tan Dun, Alexander Lazarev, Teodor Currentzis, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Andres Mustonen, Maxim Vengerov, Jean-Luc Ponty, Barry Douglas, Peter Donohoe, Denis Matsuev, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Boris Berezovsky, Viktor Tretiakov, Gidon Kremer, Vadim Repin, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Sergey Krylov, Kristóf Baráti, Viktoria Mullova, Natalia Gutman, David Geringas, Alexander Knyazev, James Galway, Deborah Voigt, Anna Netrebko, Laura Kleikomb, Plácido Domingo, Montserrat Caballé, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Patricia Cioffi, Elīna Garanča and ballet dancers Ulyana Lopatkina, Nikolai Tsiskaridze and Ilze Liepa as well as actors Konstantin Khabensky and Sergei Bezrukov.

Since 2002, the orchestra has given over 1000 concerts in Russia and abroad. Russian performances have taken place in Moscow and St. Petersburg, cities and towns of the Volga region and the Golden Ring, of the Urals and Siberia, while international tours have brought the musicians to countries like Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Republic of Korea, Spain, Switzerland, UK, Baltic and Nordic countries, and many others. 

The orchestra's repertoire combines classical and contemporary music of various styles and genres. It has premiered works by Gian Carlo Menotti, Edison Denisov, Mikael Tariverdiev, Sofia Gubaidulina, Giya Kancheli, Alexander Tchaikovsky, Tan Dun, Jean-Luc Ponty, Toru Takemitsu, Igor Raichelson, Emil Tabakov, Alexander Baltin, Vladimir Komarov, Boris Frankstein, Georgy Buzogly, Kuzma Bodrov and Alexey Sumak. 

The orchestra regularly appears at Yuri Bashmet's Winter International Arts Festival in Sochi and at international festivals in Yaroslavl, Rostov-on-Don and Minsk. It has taken part in the Mstislav Rostropovich Festival, Moscow Easter Festival, Guitar Virtuosi and Vivacello Festivals. The orchestra's discography includes works by Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, and Alexander Tchaikovsky. 

In March 2007, the orchestra received a grant from the Government of the Russian Federation, followed by the Grant of the President of the Russian Federation in 2010. In 2014, Novaya Rossiya was involved in preparing and running the cultural programme of the 22th Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. 

In the 2021/22 season, the orchestra presents subscription concert cycles at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and the Rachmaninov Concert Hall (Philharmonia-2) in Moscow, some of which will focus on young audiences. Conductors Alexander Sladkovsky, Igor Razumovsky, Denis Vlasenko and soloists Alena Baeva, Gaik Kazazian, Viviane Hagner, Zlatomir Fang, Boris Berezovsky, Dmitry Masleyev, Olga Seliverstova, Yaroslav Abaimov and many others will appear alongside the orchestra throughout the season.

The Yurlov Russian State Academic Choir is a world-famous Russian choir, and one of the oldest music ensembles in Moscow. 

Although the Choir celebrated the 100th anniversary of its official history in the 2018/19 season, the prehistory of the company dates back to 1900, when the church choir master Ivan Yukhov founded a family singing ensemble in the town of Shchelkovo near Moscow. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Moscow saw a lot of emerging art associations like Moscow Art Theater or Pyatnitsky Russian Folk Choir. Yukhov’s amateur choir had become widely known long before the 1917 revolution for performing sacred music, folk songs, choral, vocal, and symphonic works by Russian and Western European composers.

After the revolution, the choir was nationalized by the Soviet authorities, and in January 1919 it received the official status of the First State Choir. Apart from touring extensively, the increasingly popular ensemble was also involved in cultural projects of the young Soviet state. In particular, they recorded soundtracks for such famous films as Jolly Fellows, The Circus, We are from Kronstadt, and Volga Volga. 

Appointing Alexander Yurlov (1927–1973) to head the company in 1958 was a landmark event in its history. With this outstanding conductor, the Choir ranked among the country’s best musical groups in the 1960s. The company collaborated with the renowned Russian composers Sviridov and Shostakovich and premiered works by Rubin and Shchedrin. Alexander Yurlov deserves credit for reviving the tradition of concert performances of Russian Orthodox church music. Yurlov was succeeded by Yuri Ukhov and Stanislav Gusev, talented musicians, conductors and choirmasters who enhanced the popularity of the Choir. 

Since 2004, the Choir has been headed by Gennady Dmitryak, People’s Artist of Russia, professor, one of Russia’s top choral, opera and symphony conductors. A musician of great energy, Gennady Dmitryak meets daunting challenges confidently, while launching unique art projects. With him, the Choir ran Kremlins and Temples of Russia, and Holy Love, festivals reviving the traditions of major vocal and choral educational programs. In the spring of 2014, the company was closely involved in the 22nd Winter Olympic Games and 11th Winter Paralympic Games in Sochi. In the 2018/2019 anniversary season, the Choir held a music festival with concerts in Moscow, Sevastopol, Kurgan, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen, Surgut, Khanty-Mansiysk, as well as in France. 

The Choir often tours throughout Russia from Magadan to Kaliningrad. The company led by Gennady Dmitryak has appeared triumphantly in Spain, Greece, Great Britain, the Republic of Belarus, Armenia, Poland, Ukraine, North Korea and in the Baltic countries. The team is a regular guest of leading music festivals. Symphony conductors collaborating with the Choir include Yuri Bashmet, Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Fedoseev, Dmitri Jurowski, Vladimir Jurowski, Mikhail Pletnev, Pavel Kogan, Teodor Currentzis, Sergey Skripka, Alexander Sladkovsky, and Yuri Simonov. The ensemble is widely known for their brilliant interpretations of music by Bortnyansky, Berezovsky, Kastalsky, Grechaninov, Chesnokov, Rachmaninoff, and Sviridov. The Choir’s repertoire includes virtually all of the Russian and Western European cantatas and oratorios, from Bach’s High Mass to works by Britten, Bernstein, Shostakovich, Schnittke, Kancheli and Tavener. 

A unique project of the Choir was recording the complete choral works by Sviridov commemorating the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth. In 2019, the project won the Pure Sound International Award for the best recording of Russian academic music in Choral category. 

On May 31, 2019, the Choir was awarded the Commendation of the President of the Russian Federation ‘for merits in developing national culture and art and years of fruitful activities.’ 

(Press Service of the Choir)

Yuri Bashmet is one of the most outstanding musicians of the present day. He studied music at the Moscow State Conservatoire under Vadim Borisovsky and Fyodor Druzhinin. Under the latter, Yuri Bashmet trained and held an assistantship at the Moscow Conservatoire (1976–1978). The start of his concert activities is connected with a tour to Germany by the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, founded by Rudolf Barshai (1976). Since 1978, Yuri Bashmet has taught at the Moscow Conservatoire, as a lecturer (1988), and later as a professor (1996). Starting in 1980, Yuri Bashmet has regularly given master classes in Japan, Europe, America and Hong Kong. His students, several of whom have gone on to become prize-winners at international competitions, perform with the world’s greatest orchestras.

In 1986 Yuri Bashmet formed the chamber orchestra Moscow Soloists. Later, several musicians took the decision to remain in France, while Yuri Bashmet abandoned leadership of the orchestra, which soon after ceased to exist. In 1992 Yuri Bashmet founded a new ensemble using the old name, its members the most talented young musicians of Russia, graduates and post-graduate students of the Moscow Conservatoire. 

In 1996 Yuri Bashmet established the Experimental Viola Faculty at the Moscow Conservatoire, where in addition to solo viola works the repertoire was expanded to include viola roles in chamber, opera and symphony music as well as a strong focus on the history of performing styles from the past and present. 

The geography of the musician’s appearances is vast: it includes the finest concert halls of Europe, the USA, Canada, South America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. For the first time in world performing practice, Yuri Bashmet gave solo viola concerts in such venues as Carnegie Hall (New York), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), the Barbican Hall (London), Berliner Philharmoniker, La Scala (Milan), the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire and the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic. 

His solo concerts and ensemble appearances with other outstanding performers never fail to pack halls and rouse lively interest. Musicians with whom Yuri Bashmet has performed include Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Isaac Stern, Gidon Kremer, Marta Argerich, Oleg Kagan, Natalia Gutman, Viktor Tretyakov, Rafael Kubelik, Seiji Ozawa, Valery Gergiev, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Colin Davis, John Eliot Gardiner, Yehudi Menuhin, Charles Dutoit, Neville Marriner, Paul Sacher, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kurt Masur, Bernard Haitink, Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Yuri Temirkanov and Nikolaus Harnoncourt to name but a few. 

Yuri Bashmet’s concert programs are unusually varied and include music from various styles and eras. Many contemporary composers have dedicated or specially written works for him. These include Schnittke’s concerto, Monologue and Concert for Three (dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich, Yuri Bashmet and Gidon Kremer), concerti by Gubaidulina, Аlexander Tchaikovsky, Balakauskas, Eshpai and Ruders, Golovin’s Sonata Breve, Raskatov’s viola sonata and Kancheli’s Liturgy and Styx. 

Yuri Bashmet is the founder and jury chair of Russia’s only International Viola Competition (Moscow) as well as president of the International Lionel Tertis Viola Competition in the United Kingdom. He is the recipient of various awards and regalia from Russia as well as from other nations. In 1995, he received the Sonnings Musikfond Prize, one of the most prestigious in the world, which was conferred in Copenhagen. Previous recipients of this award include Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten, Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, Arthur Rubinstein, Dmitry Shostakovich, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sviatoslav Richter and Gidon Kremer.

Boris Berezovsky has established a remarkable reputation, both as the most powerful of virtuoso pianists and as a musician of unique insight and sensitivity.

Born in Moscow in 1969, Boris Berezovsky studied at the Moscow Conservatoire with Eliso Virsaladze and privately with Alexander Satz. Following his London début at the Wigmore Hall in 1988, The Times described him as "an artist of exceptional promise, a player of dazzling virtuosity and formidable power"; two years later that promise was fulfilled when he won the Gold Medal at the 1990 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

Boris Berezovsky works regularly as concerto soloist with orchestras including the Concertgebouw, Philharmonia Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest, Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Hamburg, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Komische Oper, Hessischer Rundfunk, Russian National Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra and with conductors such as Kurt Masur, Charles Dutoit, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Alezander Lazarev, Andrew Litton, Mikhail Pletnev, Antonio Pappano etc.

Boris Berezovsky’s recent recordings of the complete Beethoven Concerti with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard have been greeted with high critical acclaim. He has also made a considerable number of records for Teldec including solo discs of works by Chopin, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Medtner, Ravel, the complete Liszt Transcendental Studies and concertos by Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Liszt. His recording of the Rachmaninov Sonata was awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and his Ravel disc was specially recommended by Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason, BBC Music Magazine and the Independent on Sunday. He released a live DVD of Liszt’s Transcendental Studies taken from a performance at La Roque d’Antheron for Naive. Mr Berezovsky embarked on a collaboration with Warner Classics with his CD of piano trios with Dmitri Makhtin and Alexander Kniazev, and his most recent recording of the Chopin/Godowsky’s Etudes received high critical acclaim winning the instrumental category of the first BBC Music Magazine Awards.

In recital and as a chamber musician Boris Berezovsky performs regularly in recital series and festivals world-wide. His forthcoming performances include a return to the QEH International Piano Series, the Concertgebouw, La Roque d’Antheron, Ruhr Piano Festival, Les Folles Journées de Nantes, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, Megaron, Athens and Symphony Hall, Birmingham amongst others. He has a noted duo partnership with violinist Vadim Repin and Brigitte Engerer, and his piano trio performs throughout Europe at the highest level.