Russia (bbabo.net), - This year the Moscow Symphony Orchestra "Russian Philharmonic" celebrates its twentieth anniversary. There are practically no free dates in his concert schedule - performances in the best halls in Moscow and other cities follow one after another. Recently, the orchestra returned from the United Arab Emirates, where it gave a concert at Expo 2020. Gayane Shiladzhyan, director and producer of the "Russian Philharmonic", Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation, spoke about how to make a symphony orchestra interesting not only for classical lovers.
Gayane, do you remember the very first concert of the orchestra?
Gayane Shiladzhyan: Of course! It was March 19, 2001 in the Great Hall of the Conservatory. For 20 years the orchestra has already played hundreds of concerts, but I remember well our first multimedia show "Carmina Burana", and the first full house in the Kremlin Palace, and the debut with the group "Bi-2" at the "Invasion" festival. By the way, then our musicians took a long time to go on stage, because there were more than two hundred thousand rock fans in front of them! And I said: "Go and do not be afraid - they came to listen to you!" And during the concert in Gorky Park, dedicated to "Cinema", it started pouring rain. I thought to cancel everything, but when I went on stage and saw just a human sea under umbrellas, I realized that I could not do it - the show had to take place! I persuaded the musicians to play for 20 minutes, but in the end we worked out the whole concert ...
It turns out that the "Russian Philharmonic" performs under any circumstances?
Gayane Shiladzhyan: If the artist is not dead, he will take the stage. You know, I generally live with the words from Freddie Mercury's song - Show Must Go On! During the pandemic, we did not cancel a single concert, neither at 50% seating, nor at 25%. Due to closed borders, it was necessary to adapt some programs in which foreign performers had previously participated. Instead, we invited the finalists from the "Voice" show and musical stars. Some projects were postponed to later dates - I absolutely cannot imagine, for example, the "Dedication to Whitney Houston" show without the amazing Belinda Davids, and "Golden Rock Hits" without Swedish and Italian musicians. But in any case - Show Must Go On!
How do you find soloists for your programs?
Gayane Shiladzhyan: First you need to come up with a project - it's harder than finding performers. When the project has matured in my head, I begin to select soloists. Sometimes colleagues recommend, sometimes thanks to YouTube. Thus, I actually discovered many foreign artists for our country - conductors Ulf Wadenbrandt and Roberto Molinelli, vocalists Belinda Davids, Magnus Backlund, Daniel Boaventura, Simone Romanato ... you can't name all of them.
In general, I try to always look at this or that project not from the stage, but from the audience. That is, I put myself in the place of the audience - what would they like, what needs to be done to make a real show? After all, all these 20 years we have been proving that concerts of a symphony orchestra are not boring, but interesting and exciting.
Once a family came to one of our concerts: dad, mom and two daughters. Younger year 4-5. She cried and screamed. She was taken out of the hall with her dad, while her mother and her eldest daughter remained. I went up to this caprice in the foyer and said: "Do you want me to show you pictures?" We then had a concert "The Four Seasons. Vivaldi and Piazzolla" with a video projection of paintings. "Let's go to the hall, just let's agree that you won't scream. If you want to say something, tell me in my ear, we'll go out, and you can scream and cry." So she quietly sat on my lap the entire first compartment. A few years later, this girl again came to our concert with her parents. They thanked me - now the girl began to study music. I was delighted!
Who of those with whom you worked most memorable over these 20 years?
Gayane Shiladzhyan: It's hard to single out someone. We also work with our stars - Malinin, Dolina, Malikov, Valeria, Bi-2, and with world celebrities - Jose Kura, Maxim Vengerov, Jose Carreras ... they are all beautiful, all have powerful charisma. Probably, the project with Deep Purple keyboardist John Lord in 2009 will remain among the main, the most memorable for me. By the way, this was the first meeting with our chief conductor Fabio Mastrangelo. And five years later we performed with another musician of this great group - Ian Gillan. He chose our orchestra among several applicants. Just like the legendary keyboardist Rick Wakeman - in Russia he also prefers to play with the Russian Philharmonic.
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