7 Jazz Nights: acoustic Grand Piano, Daniel Spivakovsky and Letters from Skepner

On July 11, the XVIII International Festival of Improvisational Music opens in Kazan.

(KZN.RU, July 4, Alsu Safina). On July 11, the XIII International Festival of Improvisational Music “Jazz in the Kremlin with Olga Skepner” will open in Kazan. 7 jazz evenings are organized for residents and guests of the city. Both well-known musicians from Kazan and new jazz bands will perform. According to Olga Skepner, the author and music director of the festival, the festival primarily promotes Russian jazz culture despite the vast geography of the participants.

“The festival is large; it is among the top three in Russia. It is unique in that it takes a long time, two months. This year the festival is going again from scratch for me; there are many changes, and we will think in a new way”, said O. Skepner at a press conference at the Ministry of Culture of the RT. “This season, the festival is supported primarily by domestic jazz musicians associated with improvisation. I went to this for many years, and it formed this year. It does not mean that the festival is closed to other countries; it is open to all countries and cultures”.”

“I know Russian musicians well, we have a special mentality in jazz culture”, she noted. “I think that Russian musicians should be shown abroad, have tours”.

On the first evening on July 11, Quinn Devo, an American jazz-soul singer and guitarist, will perform in Kazan. The evening on July 18 will be dedicated to the creative tandem of legendary musicians: Arkady Shilkoper, a horn player, multi-instrumentalist, recognized as the best performer in the world on the Alpine horn (Germany), who has already become a participant of the festival, and Vadim Neselovsky, a world-famous pianist, who will come to the festival for the first time (USA ).

Olga Skepner said that one of the conditions for the arrival in Kazan of Vadim Neselovsky was the presence of an acoustic piano. This year, thanks to the support of the Kazan Kremlin, a white grand piano from the center “Hermitage-Kazan” will be on stage at four concerts. “There has always been a great difficulty putting a piano on the stage. The dream came true after 12 years, and we will have an acoustic grand piano on the stage”, said Olga Skepner. She added that the main difficulty is the carrying of the instrument, which requires delicate handling.

The favorite band of the Kazan public Horsepower will perform on July 25. It includes Nikolay Moiseenko, a saxophonist, composer and producer, Anton Khabibulin, a guitarist, Lev Trofimov, a pianist, Sergey Geyer, a bass guitarist, and Alexander Kulkov, a drummer.

For the first time, the band “ChetMen”, created by Dmitry Chetvergov and Mikhail Menem, will perform at the festival on August 1. On the same evening, the quartet “K.I.M.M” will be visiting Kazan. It is a new project with the participation of Alexey Kuznetsov, an Honored Artist of Russia.

On August 6, Olga Skepner's solo concert “Letters from Skepner” is scheduled. The author of the festival and jazz singer will perform together with the composer and pianist Andrey Rudenko and the string quartet of Sergey Ponomarev.

On August 15, there will be a big anniversary concert by one of the leading composers and arrangers of the Russian jazz scene, an outstanding jazz pianist Evgeny Borets, who celebrates 50 years. The concert will be attended by musicians and actors: Sergey Manukyan, Daniil Spivakovsky, Levan Lomidze, Olga Skepner, Konstantin Gevondyan, Polina Kasyanova, Timur Nekrasov, Sergey Khutas, David Tkebuchava, and the trio “BoNaSo”. “There will be dialogues for the piano and the actor, Daniel Spivakovsky and Evgeny Borets will give a 20-minute mini-performance based on Sergey Dovlatov, I believe”, Olga Skepner revealed some features of the program.

The Vintskevich-Andrianov Trio with Leonid Vintskevich, a jazz pianist, an Honored Artist of Russia, Nikolai Vintskevich, a saxophonist, and Boris Andrianov, a cellist, Eric Alexander, a famous American jazz tenor saxophonist, and the quartet of Alexey Podymkin will perform at the closing of the festival on August 22.

The festival is supported by the Government of the RT. For the third year in a row, the concert venue will be located in the Canon Court of the Kazan Kremlin. Zilya Valeeva, the director of the State Historical-Architectural and Art Reserve-Museum, believes that the festival is combined organically with the new venue, the Cannon Court.

Irada Ayupova, the minister of Culture of the RT, reminded that before, the festival was held in the park of the State Museum of Fine Arts of the RT for 10 years in a row. Now the building on Karl Marks Street is being renovated. Whether the jazz festival will return to its former venue, the Sandetsky Manor, remains an open question, said Irada Ayupova.

According to the Minister of Culture of the RT, the festival is relevant for Kazan. If in the first years of its holding, about 1 thousand spectators attended concerts, now the annual audience of the festival is about 6-7 thousand people. It is not only Kazan citizens, but also guests of the city.

All concerts will be held on Thursdays, except for one on August 6 (Tuesday). It is due to the holding of a brass band festival in Kazan on August 8-12.