BREST, 19 December (BelTA) – Ukrainian opera singer Taras Schtonda and the Chamber Orchestra of the Belarusian State Academy of Music will open the 32nd edition of the January Music Nights classical music festival in Brest on 9 January, Artistic Director and Chief Director of the festival, Honored Art Worker of Belarus Liliya Batyreva told journalists, BelTA has learned.
Soloist at the National Opera of Ukraine Taras Schtonda (bass) will make his debut at the festival. He will perform several famous romances and Ukrainian folk songs. The concert will also feature Vladimir Dulov, head of the specialist piano chair at the Belarusian State Academy of Music, accompanied by the Chamber Orchestra of the academy. The program of the concert will include Mikhail Glinka's Divertimento Brillante on themes from Bellini's opera La Sonnambula. This and many other pieces of music will be performed at the festival for the first time.
The 32nd edition of the January Music Nights classical music festival will be running on 9-12 January. It will bring together artists from ten countries: Belarus, Germany, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, the US, Ukraine, China, and the Netherlands. The program of the festival will include four music nights featuring masterpieces of Russian, Belarusian, and Eastern European music. The Shirma Brest State Music College will host another two concerts on 9 and 10 January.
The closing event of the festival is expected to be truly spectacular, Liliya Batyreva said. The lineup of the final concert includes the Chamber Orchestra of the Gomel Regional Philharmonic that is a laureate of international festivals and contests, lyric-dramatic baritone Albert Niedel from the US, and the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Belarus under the baton of People's Artist of Belarus Aleksandr Anisimov.
The concert will wrap up with a performance by the trio of musicians that includes Polish virtuoso musician Konstanty Wilenski (piano), Belarus' Vyacheslav Plesko (double bass), and Head of the Brest Music College Oleg Rovdo (percussion). The trio will perform variations on themes from George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess.
Organizers of the 32nd edition of the January Music Nights classical music are the administrations of the city of Brest and Brest Oblast, the Belarusian Culture Ministry, the Belarusian Union of Musical Workers, and the Brest Regional Music Association.
