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The anniversary X Mariinsky International Piano Festival presents winners and participants of the XV International Tchaikovsky competition: Dmitry Masleev, Lukas Geniušas, Daniil Kharitonov, Andrei Gugnin, Mikhail Turpanov and Yuri Favorin. 22 – 30 December 2015 4 venues, 18 concert programmes, 26 participants One of the main themes of the current festival is the succession and the legacy of the musical traditions passed from generation to generation. The concerts will feature appearances by both established musicians and their talented younger colleagues. The Children for Children programmes will see very young pianists performing for people of the same age. The festival opens with the young Dmitry Masleyev who triumphed at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition with the Mariinsky Orchestra under the baton of Alexander Bogorad (22 December, 19:00, CH). The same evening, the baton will be taken on by a representative of an older generation – Yefim Bronfman. Valery Gergiev will be conducting (22 December, 21:00, M-II). It will also be possible to hear Yefim Bronfman in recital, the programme to include Prokofiev’s Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Sonatas (24 December, 19:00, CH). 22 December will see the start of the festival’s chamber music concert programme. At the Prokofiev Hall of the Mariinsky-II there will be monograph evenings dedicated to Brahms, Schumann and Chopin. These will be recitals by Italian pianist Gabriele Carcano (22 December, 18:00), Maria Stembolskaya (26 December, 15:00) and Serbian pianist Miloš Mihajlović. (29 December, 18:00). The festival will see two performances by Daniil Trifonov, prize-winner at the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition, and his highly-acclaimed teacher Sergei Babayan – with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev (24 December, 21:00, М-II) and in a joint concert (26 December, 20:00, CH). Longstanding friend of the Mariinsky Theatre and of this festival Denis Mastuev will be performing with his fourteen-year-old protégé Alexander Malofeyev. The programme of the concert (25 December, 21:00, М-II) includes Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto and Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto. Valery Gergiev will be conducting. There will also be another two chances to see the outstanding young pianist Behzod Abduraimov in recital (29 December, 20:00, CH) and with the Mariinsky Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev (30 December, 18:00, CH). Christian Blackshaw and Pavel Raikerus, although not directly linked as “teacher and pupil”, are, nevertheless inheritors of one and the same musical tradition, the tradition of the St Petersburg Conservatoire. Their joint concert with the Mariinsky Orchestra will take place under the baton of Valery Gergiev (27 December, 18:00, CH). Vladimir Tropp, Honoured Artist of Russia and Professor of the Moscow Conservatoire, (25 December, 18:00, CH), and the young recipient of the 3rd prize at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition Daniil Kharitonov (29 December, 18:00, CH) represent different generations of pianists, though they are united by their love of Medtner, Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. One festival highlight comes with the performance of Vsevolod Zaderatsky’s monumental 24 Preludes and Fugues, a composer who was repressed and who never ceased to compose even while imprisoned. The stage will also see performances by participants of the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition Lukas Geniušas and Andrei Gugnin, as well as Andrei Yaroshinski, Nikita Mndoyants and Xenia Bashmet (23 December, 19:00, CH). In line with tradition, the festival programme includes the class of an outstanding piano tutor. A programme of works by Mozart, Brahms and Prokofiev will be performed by Mikhail Voskresensky, a Professor of the Moscow Conservatoire and Guest Professor of the University of Tokyo, which celebrates sixty years of concert performances this year (28 December, 19:00, CH). At the matinee on 26 December (12:00, CH) and in the evening on 27 December (20:00, CH) St Petersburg audiences can await performances by Voskresensky’s pupils who took part in the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition including Mikhail Turpanov and Yuri Favorin as well as Kyohei Sorita, Nguyen Kim Ngan and Andrei Shichko. Founders of the festival: Valery Gergiev and Mira Yevtich http://www.mariinsky.ru/