On the 26th of April the climax of our project came. It was a big thing which we had been planning during the whole year. The venue was The International House of Music, a new and beautiful hall in Moscow.
As we had intended to do, we invited two most gifted young students from our master-classes. The pianist, Salome Jordania came from Georgia and Aleksa Popovic, saxophonist, was from Serbia.
All the organizational routine was our responsibility: visas, accommodation, transportation, practice facilities, rehearsals, etc. It was the first time in our lives when we did that kind of job. The main difficulty was to make a visa for our Georgian guest. The situation between our countries is extremely difficult at the moment. Russians can come to Georgia without any problems, for three months’ stay without a visa. But Georgians cannot do the same if they want to come to Russia. It is not only that they cannot come without a visa, but Russian government has given “directions” to the Home Office to refuse any invitations from Russians to their friends or relatives. So, literary nobody from Georgia can come to Russia. Of course, we did not know that as nobody says this out aloud. No one can enter and have an appointment in the Russian embassy in Tbilisi; and rules for the Russian visa application are quite different from the Georgian. We had had a big confusion about it at the beginning till we realized what was going on there. Finally we found out that the only way to do it was to get an invitation from a very high, public person, either a politician or from the Church institute. We applied every effort to convince our acquaintances from these circles to help us. But everyone refused with the words: “We don’t want to have problems”. So we did not have any hope left to do it legal. Georgian friends told us that it was possible to buy a visa in Tbilisi for $1,200 per person. Obviously we did not have that much money for that. But luck came to save us in this situation as Salome was included into the huge foundation “New Names” in Russia, where Vladimir Spivakov is the president. In the last week they helped us to get an invitation and luckily it worked. So it was just a coincidence and without that we could not do anything by our own.
Finally Salome and her teacher got visas and came to Russia. On the same day Aleksa came from Serbia.
Monday, the 23rd of April
The next day we arranged the dress-rehearsal in a beautiful musical school where we all played through our concertos to see how the programme fitted together and what could be improved or changed. Salome played Chopin’s Second Piano concerto, which is quite challenging at the age of 15, I would say. She did it beautifully: with an absolutely mature sound, phrasing, elegance and passion, reflections, and confidence. I was really proud of her as I did not have much to say to her. She was really well prepared, she had played it at some other recitals for preparing herself for our Gala Concert, and it came out as a very mature interpretation.
The next one was Aleksa Popovic, a Serbian saxophonist. We did not have that great choice of saxophonists during this year because of the general scarcity of that instrument in the world. But Aleksa was a good choice. He does not have a great school, he is only 17 at the moment, but his dedication, his hunger to know, to learn, to study, his curiosity and inquisitiveness make everything for him. He is a very natural and musical player, and it is very pleasant to see how he wants to put as much effort in his playing as he can and how responsible he is. He played J. Demersseman, “The Fantasy on the Original Theme for the Saxophone Alto and Orchestra”.
Tuesday, the 24th
The young had a day for practicing and some rest. All the organizational stuff was on us, such as to provide practice facilities, which we arranged at some musical schools, provide a transportation, as Moscow is a huge city and it is impossible for foreigners to orientate easily in it, meals, sight-seeing, and shopping.
Wednesday the 25th
We met the conductor to discuss our preferences in the interpretation, followed by the first rehearsal with the orchestra, which went really well.
Thursday the 26th of April
The Big Day started when we arrived to the rehearsal in the International House of Music. There were lots of things involved in this concert: we did not have just to come and play, but all the posters, programmes with biographies, flyers, and invitations were provided from our side. The compère, who was our friend, kindly agreed to help us with the introduction and announcing the performers and the programme. So we had to write a speech for her, as well as provide the recordings, photographer and journalists, banquet after the concert, figurines for our winners which we had to buy (we found the nice ones with the Treble Clef), Diplomas for them as well, for which we had to think of the text and design and find a place to print it out, and lots of other small tasks that we usually never think about before and during the normal concert. Plus we had to think about our own performances and do our best on stage. In other words, physically it was not easy to do everything, to practice and be concentrated on the music. But the main thing for us was to accommodate our guests in the best way and give them the opportunity to be focused on the music.
We agreed with the orchestra that they would play some solemn Overture at the very beginning, and we chose the Polonaise from Tchaikovsky`s “Eugene Onegin”. After that the compère went on the stage and said welcome to the audience and told them about the project: what the aim was, where we had been, and who those two young musicians were. Then we went on the stage and gave the acknowledgements to everybody who had helped and supported us, who believed and appreciated what we were doing. And we introduced these two children for the evening, told the audience why we had chosen them and what a great honor it was for us to have the opportunity to listen to such talents. After that we held the Awards Ceremony for our winners and the concert started.
In the first half Salome and Aleksa played their concertos, and in the second Vitaly and myself performed. Vitaly played a new written piece by Andre Vainen called “Rhapsody”, followed by my Tchaikovsky concerto.
Everyone did a great job and it was a great success. Everyone loved our winners and it was really worth that.
I cannot t say that the performance was an easiest one for me. I did not have much time for preparation, it was the first time that I played this concerto on stage with the orchestra, and the whole atmosphere and circumstances around the date did not make my situation easier. But on the stage I had the feeling of doing my job, thinking about the music, and providing the sound, characters and shapes that I heard in my head.
Playing with the orchestra gives you a very special feeling. You have to be part of it, and though the genre was created as a “competition” between the soloist and the orchestra, you have to be extremely sensitive during the performance. First of all you have to know the score, where you are alone, where you are in duo with some instrument, or where you are in Tutti. It all requires different colours from the soloist. Plus you have to know where your main themes are and where the accompaniment is, where you have to support some instrument and where you are leading. The next thing is tempos: sometimes you can dictate your own position and sometimes you only have to trust the conductor.
So there are lots of interesting issues we have to think about while playing with the orchestra.
Finally everyone played and had lots of appreciation, had a nice buffet table after the concert, children gave interviews for TV, photographers took pictures, and the Project was over for this year.
There was a nice feeling of sadness that it had finished, and our thinking of how to continue that project since we had such a great appreciation, saw that people really needed it, and understood that that kind of job was probably more important than doing anything else in regard to our profession. When we do something for others it is much more rewarding that when we do it for ourselves. So I am sure it is not the end, I am sure we will revisit lots of places and go to the new ones. And I am sure that the Music for Peace did something really meaningful and important, at least for somebody, during this year.