Music in the park

The 11th International Festival “Musical Summer Nights in Kyiv” has opened in Central Park near Mariinsky Palace, attracting music lovers who regularly come on their days off to listen to leading performers and talented young musicians. One of the most picturesque places in Kyiv, Central Park was created in the 18th century, and the summer concerts were launched in the last century.

In the 1920s educational concerts for the public were held on the summer stage in Central Park, featuring such prominent musicians as Alexander Glazunov, Sergei Prokofiev, Vladimir Horowitz, and Nathan Milstein, as well as the conductors Reinhold Gliere and Felix Blumenfeld. In the 1950s the noted conductor Natan Rakhlin launched a summer musical series in the open air, performing a vast repertoire of classical music for the residents of Kyiv and their guests.

This wonderful tradition was revived in 1998 on the initiative of the International Charitable Foundation of the Vladimir Horowitz Competition, the Kyiv Gliere State Music Academy, and the Kyiv Mayor’s Office. In the past decade 275 concerts have been held with the participation of 634 soloists and 150 performing groups from 28 countries, including Austria, Armenia, Belarus, China, Korea, Estonia, France, Great Britain, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the US, and Yugoslavia.

The festival opened in a traditional way-with a parade of brass bands. On May 31, 2008, the audience was entertained by the Filarmonia Symphony Orchestra (conductor Mykola Sukach) and solo pianists Pavlo Kachnov, Oleksii Kovalenko, and Pavlo Minhaliov. For International Children’s Day the festival organizers prepared a special program featuring award- winning musicians and the Kyiv Camerata Ensemble (conductor Valerii Matiukhin). A series of concerts will be devoted to the 140th anniversary of the Kyiv State Music Academy.

The festival repertoire is extremely diverse, and audiences will be treated to classical and contemporary works as well as jazz and folk music performed by symphony and chamber orchestras, folk and brass bands, choirs, jazz groups, and solo performers. Concerts are held on Saturdays and Sundays from late May through July.