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The Festival of Guitar Music “Menestrel” posters
saw the light first in February 1992. The idea belongs too
Eduard Chernivchan. The Director is Marina Romanovskaya. The
logo of the project made by Alexander Vyshka, art-designer
(Vitebsk). All Festival events are traditionally taking place
in the Vitebsk Business and Cultural Center of the Joint-stock
company “The Classics of Fashion Industries”.
The 1992 and 1993 Festivals were dedicated to the classical
heritage. It was not “Menestrel” then, but “The Chamber Festival
of Classical Guitar Music”. Since 1994, the Festival has widened
the frames of a guitar art and the audience of the instrument
admirers has been able to hear the music of talented arrangers
and modernist, composers, to get familiar with other guitar
schools and directions. Thus, at the 1997 and 1998 Festivals
solo concerts were given by original musicians from Moscow
Ivan Smirnov and Victor Zinchuk.
The Festival introduces a guitar as not only a solo instrument.
The “Menestrel” allows the listeners to make certain of how
rich its sounding is when accompanied by a symphony orchestra
or played as accompaniment or a duet with lute, flute, piano.
Each Festival opens up surprising potentialities of a guitar,
keeps making the spectators familiar with its rich, centuries-old
history and with the names of the greatest composers - Bach,
Ponce, Tarrega, Albenis, Villa-Lobos, Barrios and others.
The “Menestrel” is traditionally held at the “junction” of
winter and spring. A private motto of the Festival: “At a
half hour before the spring…” Chamberness of public concerts
is a characteristic feature of the “Menestrel”, not very large
cozy auditorium (up to 200 persons), tables for the spectators,
candles. The stage and the musicians are inside common theatrical
scenery of the whole action - “the vaults of a Gothic cathedral”,
“the inner courtyard of a patrimonial estate”, “the streets
of a medieval town”. Within a context of the performance,
specially made slide films are used (projected on three 3,5
m. by 5 m. screens), poetical readings and art exhibitions
are held.
All the “Menestrel” concerts are customary sold out for every
performance. Starting literally with the very first concerts,
the audience’s interest has exceeded all expectations. That
is why, since 1994, a closing Gala-concert in the Big Hall
of the Business and Cultural Center (1000 persons), has been
made provision for in the “Menestrel’s” programe. Thanks to
the cooperation with the Belarusian gramophone recording company
Beloton, a concert recording has been made and a rarity double
disc (500 copies circulation) with the musical compositions
performed by the Festival’93 participants has been released
as well as an audiocassette with the 1995 Festival recordings.
Great honour was rendered to the “Menestrel’93” by a famous
Russian composer Nikita Koshkin. A well known in the guitar
world name attached a weighty image to the Festival from the
very beginning of its existence. The maitre not only honoured
Vitebsk with his presence but also presented one of his most
recent compositions “The Watch” and took part in the disc
recording. In that same 1993, for the first time in Belarus
a partial recording of a newly found musical material from
the famous “Polatski Shytak”, dated back to the 16 - Th. Century,
was made after arrangement by Evgueni Gridyushko, a pedagogue
of the Belarusian Academy of Music.
Getting familiar with an essentially new guitar GRAN (Guitar
Russian Acoustic New) was one the most sensational events
of the Festival’94. The guitar was first introduced in the
Republic by Muscovite Anatoly Olshansky, one of the inventors.
The National Music Institutes of the Western Europe and North
America keenly appreciated GRAN’s capabilities, purity and
profundity of its sounding. The Austrian GRAN-center has available
written illustrations from Julian Brim, John William, Christopher
Parking and other famous musicians and composers about the
unique capabilities of the guitar. A special order was put
in by the legendary English singer and composer, ex-Beatles
Paul McCartney.
1997 turned out especially unique for the history of the
Festival. Just for the time of the Festival, the participant
in the international festivals of age-old music, honorary
member of lutenists society of France, Great Britain and America
Muscovite Alexander Suetin along with Ksenia Markina, the
only one of former USSR who got higher musical education as
a harp-player in Paris, created “Alternatum”, an original
musical project. The owner of the famous collection of renewed
old instruments Alexander Suetin introduced one of them -
a barge lute. And Ksenia Markina brought to Vitebsk the only
one in the world “live” barge harp of 17 Th. Century! The
experts in many countries consider this harp to still have
its original sounding. You can imagine how original compositions
of those times written for these two instruments sounded when
played by the duet. The owner of the unique instrument acknowledged
that it was the rare happening when the harp left the museum
repository, and Vitebsk was the first town to see the premiere
of the duet.
The musicians from three countries took part in the Festival’2000
- Yan Skrygan (Belarus), Anatoly Olshansky (Russia) and Kurt
Rodarmer (USA). The concerts of the Festival were given in
Vitebsk, in Polotsk Sophia Cathedral, in Mogilev and Minsk.
One of the concerts was held in the alma mater of Belarusian
musical art - Belarusian Academy of Music. The heads and officials
of many foreign embassies attended the performance, beside
the teachers and students of the Academy.
Yan Skrygan, one of the “Menestrel’98”, this time again made
a very favorable impression. A promising musician, student
of Belarusian Academy of Music, presented local school of
classic guitar highly satisfactorily.
Anatoly Olshansky amazed everybody as a composer. He played
his own pieces written on the works of Gogol, Dostoyevsky,
and Pushkin. As the specialists said, those were not just
musical illustrations. The pieces contained a serious attitude
to literature expressed in the light of sounding of the new
GRAN-guitar.
Kurt Rodarmer, a phenomenal musician from the USA, became
famous owing to his ten years’ work on the recording of “Goldberg
Variations” by I. S. Bach. A gramophone company Sony Classical
declared this recording to be a great event in the world of
classical music having included his name in the golden cohort
of pianists, violinists, and cellists. Taking the declaration
in as a sensational one it must be noted in the first place
that Kurt Rodarmer is a God-gifted musician and a master guitarist.
In his past, Kurt Rodarmer was a student of maestro Segovia.
His talent and extraordinary flair for reading music gave
him access to the family archives of the great Ponce. It was
for the first time that Vitebsk and Belarus heard a musician
of the world level. The excellent guitarist’s participation
in the Festival became possible owing to assistance of the
US Embassy in Belarus
Besides perfectly arranged and well held musical meetings,
the Festival’2000 had an unexpected continuation. Finalizing
his visit to Belarus Kurt Rodarmer presented one-time encouraging
awards to two young students of Belarusian Academy of Music
Yan Skrygan and Natalya Lipnitskaya on his behalf. Also, thanks
to Kurt Rodarmer the National Academy of Music got a barge
lute made by a Belarusian master. The wonderful gift will
allow to introduce a new subject - getting familiar with one
of the oldest instruments of humanity - in the nearest future.
Actually
every year, the events of the Festival are shot by the TV
and recorded by radio crews with further broadcasting through
the channels of the State radio and Television Company of
the Republic of Belarus. Press conferences with the participants,
art meetings and master-classes with the Vitebsk musicians
as well as with the guests from other towns of Belarus, Russia,
Ukraine, Baltic republics are held within the Festival.
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