21st International Moscow Festival "Bayan and Bayanists" - Russia

With participation of the federal agency of culture, Russian Gnessin Academy of Music and the Friedrich Lips Fund the traditional XXI International Festival “Bayan and bayanists” took place in the concert hall of the Russian Gnessin Academy of Music in Moscow from December 9 to 13th, 2009.

            In the opening concert laureats of international competitions 2009 were acclaimed by the public: D. Eliasson, K. Tarabrina, A. Sysoyev, V. Kiselev, R. Batalov, I. Puriz and S. Shmelkov. As the year of 2010 will be under the sign of cultural partnerships between Russia and France, the second part of this concert was dedicated to French music presented by Duet “Paris-Moscow” (D. Emorine,    R. Jbanov)  and Fench accordionists F. Brut and P. Lavale, all of them winners of international competitions, too.

            N. Vlassov, student of V. Golubnichy at the Glinka-Conservatory in Nichny Novgorod, proved his already great mastership not only by performing a solo recital (works by A. Cholminov, F. Couperin and F. Busoni) but also with his ensemble “Con forza” (accordion, violin, piano, guitar, percussion, double bass and soprano): performance of R. Galliano’s “Concert” and their own work “Spring”.

Of course the crowd was asking for some encores.

            It belongs to the tradition of the festival to organize lectures about interesting topics. This year the instrumental factory located in Tula presented their instruments “Mir” and “Rus”, young bayanists performing bayan works followed by discussion under the direction of F. Lips and A. Gataullin. The “Creative School MASTER-CLASS” presented different types of harmonica instruments: concertina, bandoneon, vibrandoneon, musette, variété, jazz and last but not least the digital accordion. A. Selivanov led through this part of the event.

            The absolute highlight of the whole festival – not only because of the completely filled concert hall of the Gnessin Music Academy – was the concert of A. Skljarov in the occasion of his 60^th birthday. He performed his program with works by E. Derbenko, V. Novikov, R. Galliano, A. Nayunkin with a unique technical and musical mastership, outstanding not only in Russia but all over the world.

Nowadays the Bayan Trio of Lipezk (S. Eltchaninov, V. Karpy and V. Melnik) truly can be considered as one of the best actually performing trios. Because of celebrating their 35^th anniversary of concert activity they were invited to this year’s bayan festival.

            Former winner of the Klingenthal competition (1982) E. Seit-Abdulov and Finnish accordionist Janne Rättyä were the soloists of the 4^th evening. Seit-Abdulov showed a big variety in his program with works by C. Franck, D. Klebanov, F. Angelis, R. Ibadlayev and C. Saint-Saëns / F. Liszt. Rättyä is one of the leading young accordionists representing the Scandinavian school using new techniques and many sound effects in such works as Lindberg’s “Jeux d’anches”. He started his program with Frescobaldi (Capriccio di durezze) and Bach (excerpts of the “Goldberg Variations”), finishing with G. Ping’s “Dance – Fury”.           

The final concert was marked by entertainment. E. Derbenko, primarily known as a composer, astonished the public during his author’s concert performed by himself and his students. Russian “People’s artist” Valery Kovtun together with his trio “Carneval Akkordeona” charmed the crowd by performing well-known tunes in breath-taking arrangements.

Surely a historical moment when CIA Vice-President Herbert Scheibenreif presented the CIA Merit Award to bayan legend Yury Ivanovich Kazakov for his outstanding contributions to the  development of the accordion in the occasion of his 85^th birthday on December, 24^th 2009.

According to the tradition (since 1993) the “SILVER DISKs” were conferred to composer Efrem Podgaits as well as to the Lipezk Trio and accordionists/bayanists V. Belyakov and V. Kovtun for their merits in the bayan art. Exhibitions and presentations of musical instruments of chief world producers took place in the foyer of the concert hall Russian Gnessin Academy of Music throughout the festival.