Blog # 90. European Tour with National Youth Orchestra of the USA and Valery Gergiev

Our European tour with maestro Gergiev and a unique orchestra begins! I am talking about National Youth Orchestra of the USA. The most important thing is that musicians in this orchestra are between the ages of 16 and 19 years old, US citizens or permanent residents from different states, who are not enrolled full-time in a college-level conservatory or music department on an instrumental performance major. For the first time auditions for this orchestra took place in 2013 under the initiative of Carnegie Hall and its executive and artistic director Sir Clive Gillinson (exceptionally creative and talented person), the inaugural guest conductor was Valery Gergiev. Their first tour with maestro Valery Gergiev and violinist Joshua Bell included concerts in Washington, DC, Moscow, St. Petersburg and London.

It is a great honor for me to participate in this tour in Europe, it is a great pleasure to perform with orchestras of young musicians, because they give the audience their unique energy and demonstrate aspiration to play perfectly. For me their example is an incredible incentive to work and to create. I have played with various youth orchestras, including the Verbier Festival orchestra, for example. We can be proud of Russian youth orchestras as well. Youth orchestra of Voronezh, with which we did a lot of joint projects in Voronezh and which took part in the Crescendo festival in Moscow in Rachmaninov hall of the Philharmony -2 last year. Youth orchestra of the Sverdlovsk Philharmonic, which impressed me deeply at the festival in Yekaterinburg recently. I will never forget how the audience was stunned, when the children's orchestra "Constellation of Baikal" performed at the festival of Annecy. Now Yuri Bashmet conducts auditions for all-Russian youth Symphony orchestra.

I believe, it is a great idea, because young musicians gain unique experience, communicate with great conductors and attend master-classes of being a part of an orchestra. And it is especially important, because many of them will dedicate their lives to work in an orchestra. This is a unique skill to be part of one big living organism, where all groups of the orchestra need to "breathe" and respond to every move synchronously as a single unit. This task becomes complicated, if it is not a permanent orchestra, but that consists of musicians who gather together from time to time for a tour.

We start our joint European tour with Valery Gergiev and the National youth orchestra of the USA in Amsterdam on July 21 with a concert at the Royal Concertgebouw. This season Concertgebouw has almost become my second home: recently I gave a recital there, and in August 2016 a DVD recording of a concert that I performed at the Royal Concertgebouw in October 2015 will be released. Later I will tell you when and where we plan to organize a presentation of this disc.

I admire this concert hall and now I am in anticipation of performance of the Third Concerto by Rachmaninov with such a wonderful orchestra and a brilliant conductor. Young musicians always bring the incredible enthusiasm, an unquenchable thirst to learn, boundless desire to create and endless energy. And these are actually things without which one should never go on stage.

Join us this evening! Come to Concertgebouw or watch the live stream of the concert on July 21 Medici.tv at 21.00!

http://www.medici.tv/#!/valery-gergiev-denis-matsuev-the-nyo-debussy-rachmaninov-prokofiev