Anniversary of the Novosibirsk Academic Symphony Orchestra

NOVOSIBIRSK. 60 years of triumph, excellence and civic courage.

The sixtieth birthday of the beloved orchestra was celebrated with him throughout the city. Exhibition of archival photographs dedicated to the illustrious collective, broadcasting of his records in the subway, kind words, letters of thanks from the city authorities. The anniversary concert was preceded by a successful tour in Europe. Full houses at all eight concerts: in Madrid, Alicante, Vienna, Dusseldorf, Petersburg. Warm welcome, excellent contact with the audience, who appreciated the variety and complexity of the program, the class of the game, the coherence of the orchestra. The granddaughter of Arnold Mikhailovich, who did not leave the musicians with her attention and care, became a kind of guardian angel of the collective in his distant wanderings.

The gala concert “60 Years of Triumph” was decorated with a performance by pianist Dmitry Masleev, winner of the last Tchaikovsky competition. The audience was able to enjoy many classic hits performed by the jubilee orchestra conducted by Gintaras Rinkevichus: Rachmaninov’s second concert, Tchaikovsky’s amazing overture-fantasy “Romeo and Juliet”, and compositions by Rimsky-Korsakov and Mozart. A delightful cherry on a birthday cake was the performance of the overture to “William Tell”. For two minutes, the musicians turned into vocalists, performed their parts in a temperamental, relaxed, and “akapelno” manner.

In the hall, there was an invisible presence of the one to whom this wonderful team owes its birth. A graduate of the violin and conductor faculties of the Leningrad Conservatory, and then its teacher, 60 years ago created from scratch and nurtured a team of like-minded virtuosos who glorified the scientific center far beyond its borders. The highest level allowed musicians to take on the most complex works, the performance of which sometimes required civil courage. The symphony “Babi Yar” by Shostakovich was sounded in Novosibirsk despite the objections of the city leadership. Katz was the creator of the Siberia-East-West youth orchestra, the Novosibirsk Camerata ensemble, the organizer of the annual Classics and Modernity festival, and the pianist competition in memory of the French pianist Vera Lotar-Shevchenko. Arnold Mikhailovich took an active part in the fate of this courageous woman, a repressed woman, who served in the Gulag, did not break, and returned to music.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru