Vladimir Spivakov opened his festival for the fifteenth time.

The festival «Moscow Meets Friends» brings together young musicians from all over the world. This time guests will perform on the stage of the House of Music, the Bolshoi Theatre and Pushkin Museum, in the Tretyakovka and Tchaikovsky Hall, as well as in music schools and social institutions. Another important anniversary this season will be for Vladimir Spivakov the 40th anniversary of his chamber orchestra «Moscow Virtuosi».

Is your foundation celebrating its 25th anniversary this season as well?

Vladimir Spivakov: This is the most important thing I have done in my life – my Foundation. In a quarter of a century we have raised more than 25,000 children! I am even embarrassed to talk about the number of unique instruments that have been given to young musicians, about the many complex operations, including open-heart operations, that have been performed on children both in our country and abroad. It is encouraging to see how the children I met when they were only 9-10 years old have now become great artists. Many of them are well-known musicians, winners of major international competitions. Our festival «Moscow Meets Friends» also helps to identify talents. This year we have participants from 32 countries, and even from countries with which we have difficult relations, such as Great Britain. During the festival, there will be a wonderful exhibition with 12,000 works sent to us! More than 40 paintings by little artists have arrived from Sochi, from the Sirius Educational Centre. All this gives me a feeling of great happiness and joy.

This year your orchestra «Moscow Virtuosi» is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Can the fate of the orchestra be compared with the fate of an artist, with the fate of a person in whose life there are ups and downs?

Vladimir Spivakov: Of course. Musicians come to the orchestra – bright personalities. Marina Tsvetaeva gave a wonderful definition: «An orchestra is the unity of a multitude». So, we need to create such a plural unity, in which not only the bows and fingers on the neck move simultaneously, but also where people breathe together! We had to go through, if you can call it that, «fall» when only part of the orchestra returned with me from Spain, where we worked for three years under the patronage of Prince Philip of Asturias, now King of Spain. That was when it was difficult, we had to recruit new young musicians. There is such a medieval treatise «On the benefits of desperate situations». We found a way out! Now the orchestra plays no worse than the first cast.

You are the main «artist» of Moscow Virtuosi, how do you work on the orchestra’s sound palette? On what does it depend?

Vladimir Spivakov: It all depends on my perception of music, my experience, and the improvisation that is sure to be present at my rehearsals. Music, when you love it, gives you the freedom to use the means that are available to reveal artistic and emotional content.

Does your vision of music change over the years?

Vladimir Spivakov: Each composer is a genius on a huge scale; his or her premonitions run for several decades. That’s why you constantly find something new in the same compositions. And there are also such intimate things as letters and memoirs – I love reading them, it allows me to feel the artist’s soul. In performing the work, we live in the time in which the composer created, but still our view is directed forward, towards the future… On 9 October we open our jubilee season with renowned pianist and conductor Christian Zacharias – an authoritative interpreter of Mozart’s works.

Has the House of Music been part of the cultural life not only of Moscow, but also of the world for a long time?

Vladimir Spivakov: Every day we have almost 3000 people! Now the Moscow Mayor’s Office and Sergei Sobyanin have allocated funds to us to improve the hall’s acoustic system, as the equipment does not stand still – we need to constantly introduce the latest achievements in sound.

Will the opening of the «Charge» create competition for you?

Vladimir Spivakov: It is good that there is another concert hall. Now it has incredible opportunities, as huge funds have been allocated for its «promotion». We will see how it will be done, what it will do, we will see.

Vladimir Spivakov: A concert dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Alexander Solzhenitsyn will take place on 16 December. I was asked by Natalia Dmitrievna to hold this concert. I consider Solzhenitsyn a great figure of Russia, a man with a capital letter. His «Prayer of Russia» for the a capella choir by composer Yuri Falik will be performed at the concert, as will pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn and NFOR perform Beethoven’s Concerto. Which Ignat once played in the presence of his father. The Fifth Symphony of Shostakovich will also be performed: it is my conviction that the writer’s and composer’s paths intersect in ethical, aesthetic and moral sense.

What do you wish your colleagues in the anniversary season?

Vladimir Spivakov: Health, tranquillity and patience are the most important things. As Father Alexander Men said: «Patience is courage»!

Text: Tatiana Esaulova