Since 1993 the East-Finnish town Mikkeli hosts the world-famous Mariinsky Theatre from Saint Petersburg under its dynamic and charismatic General Director Valery Gergiev. Maestro Gergiev himself, one of the most sought-after conductors of the world, will conduct all five main concerts of his festival, which lasts from 4th to 8th of July 2010. One of the focus points of the highly attractive program will be the Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin as Artist in Residence. Some of his most popular works will be performed in all main concerts. Of main interest will be his Carmen-Suite after Bizet’s opera, created for his wife, the primaballerina of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, Maiya Plissetskaya. Other works will be the Symphonic Diptych, dedicated to Valery Gergiev, and two concertos, one for Trumpet and the Piano Concerto No. 5. In 1996 Valery Gergiev conducted for the first time a symphony by Gustav Mahler in Mikkeli. The same symphony (No. 6) will be repeated 2010 with the addition of two more symphonies, No. 1 and 4, which have not been heard at the Mikkeli Music Festival before. With the symphonies No. 6 and 7 he will conclude the cycle of symphonies by Jean Sibelius. One more focus point will be music by composers from the Caucasus region, the Violin Concerto by the Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian, the symphonic poem Leyla and Mejnun by the Azerbaijan composer Kara Karayev and the Piano Concerto by the Georgian composer David Toradze. This concerto will be played by the composer’s son, Alexander Toradze. Two other piano soloists will be the previous winners of the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition – Miroslav Kultyshev, playing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and one of the shooting stars of the new generation of pianists, Denis Matsuev (praised by critics as the new Horowitz) with Shchedrin’s Piano Concerto No. 5. Sergey Khachatryan will make a most welcome return to Mikkeli, performing this time Khachaturian’s popular Violin Concerto, and Timur Martynov will be the soloist in Shchedrin’s Trumpet Concerto. Mikkeli, not far from the Russian border, is the ideal place to build a cultural bridge between Finland and Russia]. Therefore in addition to the concerts conducted by Valery Gergiev, the Mikkeli Music Festival will have some additional concerts which are highly attractive for those who are not exclusively interested in symphonic music. Russian pianist Maxim Mogilevsky will give a chamber music recital with music by Debussy, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich in Hirvensalmi Church.
The tickets sales will start on Monday at Lippupalvelu, 1st of March in 2010. | 
