The Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre is presenting a new series of the Contemporary Piano Faces international festival – there will be concerts together with the Mariinsky Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev as well as recital programmes by unique musicians from various generations and different schools who all have their own “voice”, unlike that of any other performer: Denis Matsuev, Christian Blackshaw, Goran Filipec, Ohad Ben-Ari, Vladimir Milosevic, Eric Ferrand-N’Kaoua, Nikita Abrosimov, Ignasi Cambra, Sangwon Kim, Edisher Savitski and Vakhtang Kodanashvili.

Denis Matsuev: “It was a wonderful initiative on behalf of Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre to establish a festival with such a wonderful and subtle name as Contemporary Piano Faces in order to come together and present audiences with utterly different piano schools from all over the world.
“Of course, it is important to understand that the Soviet (Russian) piano school is, in my opinion, the best; first and foremost, it brought to life the art of singing on the piano, it existed in the “closed” USSR in a kind of detached manner. Today young pianists have the opportunity to take master classes and change their teachers. And so the various piano schools, including the Russian one, have mixed together. And I believe there’s something positive about that.
“At the Contemporary Piano Faces festival you will be able to see different generations and different schools. That is just great, because piano music is tremendously popular throughout the world.”

Valery Gergiev has stated that the festival’s task is to invite musicians to St Petersburg who have already won international acclaim but who are, as yet, less well known in Russia and to introduce new names and clear the path for young talents as well as to popularise piano music.