Tickets for a concert Chamber Orchestra «Moscow Virtuosi» conducted by Vladimir Spivakov Novosibirsk residents bought out the programme almost immediately after the announcement of the IV Trans-Siberian Art Festival.

And they sat on the stairs on the balcony, on specially designed attaché chairs, on the stage. However, on the stage there were chairs for gifted children – free seats for young talents at concerts of the orchestra «Moscow Virtuosi» are always and everywhere – this is a tradition that defends the maestro and his team.

The performance of the Moscow Virtuosi is an extraordinary event in itself. But on 26 March, for the first time on the stage of the Katz Concert Hall, the «Virtuosos of Moscow» will perform as part of the festival Vladimir Spivakov and Vadim Repin played a duet. They performed a Bach Concerto for two violins and an orchestra.

Not surprisingly, the unique premiere was attended by Sergei Menyailo, the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Siberian Federal District, and Vladimir Gorodetskiy, Governor of the Novosibirsk Region, Dmitry Asantsev, Chairman of the Council of Deputies of the City of Novosibirsk, and Anna Tereshkova, Head of the Department of Culture, Sports and Youth Policy of the City Hall of Novosibirsk. An infrequent guest at symphonic concerts, repeated Olympic champion Alexander Karelin was sitting in the same room with him. The audience included musicians, artists and directors, prominent Novosibirsk businessmen.

One hour before the concert – rehearsal. The violinists went on stage and played as if they had been performing together for many years.

However, they did perform together for many years. True, not in a duet.

– «At the rehearsal we found such a mutual understanding, as if we had been playing together for the last 25-30 years», Vladimir Spivakov confirmed to journalists after the rehearsal. «Before that, I accompanied Vadim many times, standing behind the conductor’s desk, and even at the opening of the hall… Almost a whole life has passed with Vadim. I remember him as a little boy…»

Vadim Repin, standing next to the maestro, smiled:

– And I’ll take you as a young boy…

– «He was thirteen years old», Spivakov continued to remember, «together with Zhenya Kisin they played with the ‘Virtuosi’ at some party concert in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, rehearsing, I think, forty-five times. It’s true that I didn’t come to all the rehearsals … And, of course, I remember the performance of Zhenya and Vadim before the Tchaikovsky Competition. Then everyone said in one voice that now it is possible not to open the contest at all. Which is still true so far…»

So we have a wonderful relationship, we have met a lot – we treat each other with great respect and love. I can say that one of the most important qualities for me, which is and has been in Vadim from the very beginning, is the nobility of play. Now it’s a great rarity: everyone aspires to effects, God knows what, distorts music, and it turns into such a big «I». And it’s important not to protrude yourself, on the contrary – you have to treat yourself as calmly as possible. There is something higher – there is music, there is the Bach universe, we bow before it.

The Spivakov Orchestra became a participant in the Trans-Siberian Art Festival for the first time, and the musicians gave two concerts in Krasnoyarsk and one in Novosibirsk.

– «It’s wonderful that there is such a festival at all», the maestro answered journalists’ questions. – The world has changed a lot now, it is very complicated, it is full of aggression, imperfections and an antimony. And music soothes people, comforts them, harmonises them, negative feelings gradually disappear and they somehow rise above what is happening.

Musicians were also involved in harmonising the world. In the first section, in addition to the Bach Concerto with Vadim Repin, the Chamber Symphony by Shostakovich was performed.

In the second section, the musicians delighted the audience with Kancheli’s Little Daneliade and Piazzolla’s series The Seasons in Buenos Aires. Orchestra soloists Denis Shulgin, Lev Iomdin, Georgy Cai and Evgeny Stembolsky, confirming that the orchestra has its own name «Virtuosi of Moscow».

The audience applause did not lull; the audience simply did not want to let the musicians go. Before the third encore, Vladimir Spivakov addressed the audience:

– Today, the world lives in a state of love deficiency. I very much ask Academgorodok scientists to do something about it.

And Libertango by Astor Piazzolla, full of love and harmony, sounded.

Evgenia Butorina