The 10th International Winter Arts Festival is headed by the People's Artist of the USSR, Yuri Bashmet.
The festival is opening with the play Do Not Leave Your Planet starring Konstantin Khabensky today, February 17. In the next ten days, visitors will see world premieres and the best of the programs of the previous years.
The festival program
Concerts and performances of the festival will be held at three venues: the Winter Theater, the A. Debolskii Organ and Chamber Music Hall, and the mountain ski resort "Rosa Khutor" for the first time.
The opening gala concert will be held on February 18th. It will feature the Bolshoi Theater's soloist Olga Kulchinskaya, Finnish pianist Olli Mustonen, Italian violinist Massimo Quarta and the International Brass Quartet: Philippe Tondreau (oboe, France), Valentin Uryupin (clarinet, Russia), Rie Koyama (bassoon, Japan) and Jose Vincent Catelli (horn, Spain).
Traditionlly, the festival program will include various genres of art and music:  Ballet Night performed by artists of the National Paris Opera and the Italian ballet troupe Imperfect, Classics and Rock with Diana Arbenina, and Jazz Evening with Arturo Sandoval, a 10-time holder of the Grammy Award.
Besides, the audience will see three stage productions: Eugene Onegin and Fantastic Carmen in the author's version of Yuri Bashmet, as well as the festival's premiere of The Barber of Seville directed by Victor Kramer.
The festival's special project - Where China Meets Europe - will present the Hong Kong Orchestra of Chinese  Instruments jointly with the chamber ensemble Soloists of Moscow. Specially for this occasion Russian composer Alexander Tchaikovsky and his Chinese counterpart Tan Dun have written music that will be performed by both the bands together for the first time.
Maestro Yuri Bashmet will conduct his ensembles - the Grammy winner, chamber ensemble Soloists of Moscow and the State Symphony Orchestra "New Russia".  he will conduct the All-Russian Youth Orchestra and play a viola solo at the festival closing concert on February 26. Pianist Denis Matsuev, violinist Vadim Repin and mandolinist Avi Avital will perform along with Yuri Bashmet.