The programme includes:
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Romeo and Juliet, fantasy overture
Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra
Maurice Ravel
Piano Concerto in G Major
Benjamin Britten
The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell)
Soloists:
Ivan Sendetsky (cello)
Polina Osetinskaya (piano)
Featuring Gareth Ward, Consul General of Great Britain in St Petersburg, as the Narrator
Symphony Orchestra
Artistic Director and Conductor: Arkady Steinlucht
The Middle Specialised School of Music of the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire, or the “Ten-Year School of Music” as it is commonly known, last year marked the seventy-fifth anniversary since it was established.
The history of the school officially began with the Decree of the All-Union Committee for the Arts of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR dated 25 August 1936, although it should be noted that two years before that the pianist Samary Savshinsky, a keen enthusiast for new methods in early learning in music, had set up a group for especially talented children aged between six and fifteen at the Leningrad Conservatoire. The Ten-Year School stood out from the very first days of its existence thanks to its intensive concert activities, with the school’s pupils performing at philharmonic halls in St Petersburg and across Europe.
Graduates of the school form the mainstay of orchestras in St Petersburg and occupy top positions in European music ensembles.
Performances by the school’s symphony orchestra to be conducted by Arkady Steinlucht, a former graduate, invariably prove to be unforgettable events for young audiences in St Petersburg.
Arkady Steinlucht has worked as a conductor with the Glinka Capella and the Perm Theatre of Opera and Ballet. He directed the St Petersburg Mozarteum chamber orchestra from 1989. He is currently a conductor with the Zazerkalye Children’s Music Theatre (St Petersburg) and director of the Middle Specialised School of Music of the St Petersburg Conservatoire. He has performed at theatres in cities including Minsk, Kharkov, Kazan, Novosibirsk and Baku and concert halls in Odessa, Yekaterinburg, Tbilisi, Riga, Stockholm, Berlin, Hamburg, Basel, Tokyo and Seoul.