From 22 October to 2 November 2023, the St. Petersburg N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory will host the 23rd International Conservatory Week Festival. It will bring together professors and students from high music schools in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Serbia, China, Türkiye, Oman, and Lebanon.
The eleven concerts of the Festival will take place in the Grand and Small Halls of the D. D. Shostakovich St. Petersburg Academic Philharmonia, the Concert Hall of the St. Petersburg State Academic Capella, the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre, the White Hall of the Sheremetev Palace, the Hermitage Theatre, the Atrium of the Hermitage General Staff building, the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, the Jazz Philharmonic Hall, and the Concert Hall of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. The opening and the closing concerts will be dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sergei Rachmaninov, the great pianist, composer and conductor.
The Festival Applied Research Section will include an academic conference devoted to the anniversary of Rachmaninov’s birth; educational seminars on choir conducting, instrumental and vocal performance, and music management; meet-the-artist events; open lectures and masterclasses by the representatives of high music schools from Russia and other countries. To mark the Year of the Teacher and Mentor, the Festival will present the Career Compass business game for the first time. Three competitions will also be held: the St. Petersburg Artists of Sound competition to compose pieces for a multimedia concert, the Step into the Future competition among youth ensembles, and the Musicologist competition to see who can write the best reviews, interviews and essays on the events of the 23rd International Conservatory Week Festival.
On 22 October, the large-scale opening concert of the Festival will take place in the Grand Hall of the D. D. Shostakovich St. Petersburg Academic Philharmonia. The concert programme will mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sergei Rachmaninov and present concert versions of Aleko and the well-known Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. The performers’ line-up will include soloists, the Choir and the Symphony Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, conductor Alexei Vasiliev, an Honoured Artist of Russia and the Rector of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and soloist Oleg Weinstein.
The Chamber Series will feature concerts in the White Hall of the Sheremetev Palace on 23 October and in the Glinka Small Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonia on 24 and 26 October. Audiences will see performances by soloists and chamber ensembles of the St. Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories, the Kurmangazy Kazakh National Conservatory, the University of Arts in Belgrade (Serbia), and the Jilin University of Arts and the Soochow University School of Music from China.
On 25 October, the Hermitage Theatre will present the Ethno–Classic–XXI programme highlighting the unique Ensemble of National Music and National Instruments from China, the STYLE-QUARTET Ensemble of the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory, and the Accordion and Button Accordion Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
On 27 October, the closing concert and award ceremony for the winners of the competition to compose pieces for the multimedia concert St. Petersburg Artists of Sound, which is a novel feature of this Festival, will take place in the Atrium of the General Staff Building of the State Hermitage Museum. This competition was established by the St. Petersburg Conservatory and is aimed at supporting talented young composers and performers and popularizing contemporary trends of the St. Petersburg composition school. The competition programme presents a unique opportunity to use AI to visualize musical compositions.
On 28 October, spiritual works by Russian composers will be performed as part of the Choir Academies concert in the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Among the performers will be the Chamber Choir of the Moscow Conservatory, the Choir of the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music, and the Choir of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
The St. Petersburg Jazz Philharmonic Hall will hold the Festival Jazz programme on 28 October. The well-known Turkish singer Sibel Köse and St. Petersburg musicians led by David Goloshchekin, a People's Artist of Russia, the founder and artistic director of the Jazz Philharmonic Hall, and an Honoured Professor of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, will perform original compositions and improvisations based on well-known jazz standards.
On 29 October, the Festival concert programme will culminate in Rachmaninov's The Bells, a choral symphony for soloists, choir and orchestra, and his legendary Piano Concerto No. 2, performed on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall. They will be presented by the St. Petersburg Conservatory Symphony Orchestra and a mixed choir from four conservatories of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Behind the conductor's stand will be Alexei Vasiliev, an Honoured Artist of Russia, and soloist Ilya Papoyan.
After that, two more concerts will take place. First, the Organ Academies will present the Two Organ Players programme in the Concert Hall of the St. Petersburg State Academic Capella on 30 October. Two organ players, graduates of the St. Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories, will take part in the performing competition: Timur Khaliullin and Alexey Shmitov.
Then, on 31 October, the Concert Hall of the St. Petersburg Conservatory will hold a concert given by the laureates of the Step into the Future Competition. Students of the St. Petersburg State Conservatory Secondary Special Music School, Rimsky-Korsakov Music College and Mussorgsky Music College will appear on stage.