From Russia with love (From Stroud News and Journal)

From Russia with love

THIS year's Cheltenham Music Festival gets off to a dynamic start on July 1 with an exceptional concert featuring internationally renowned violinist Viktoria Mullova playing with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the Festival's new Artistic Director, Martyn Brabbins.

Brabbins succeeds composer Michael Berkeley, whose ten year directorship fathered a wide array of new music and established the festival's reputation for highly innovative and ambitious programming, culminating in a triumphant 60th anniversary in 2004.

This year's festival promises to be no less diverse and thrilling than previous years and features a wealth of classical stars including Kiri Te Kanawa, Alfred Brendel and Steven Isserlis.

"What matters", Brabbins said, "is that every performance at the Festival should constitute a unique and stimulating event".

The main theme of this year's Festival is Russia, introduced in the opening concert with a performance of Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony and continued throughout by the works of Stravinsky, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and Rachmaninov, among others.

Brabbins tackles Tchaikovsky again when he embarks on a Tchiakovskyathon at Cheltenham Town Hall on 3 July. This offers listeners the opportunity to hear all six of Tchaikovsky's numbered symphonies in the course of a day.

Brabbins says his aim for this year's festival has been to create a programme of concerts "...that celebrate, stimulate, and illuminate. I hope, like me, you now have a keen sense of anticipation and are excited by what is planned for 2005. Please join us in this musical adventure". The festival runs from July 1 to 17.