Music concerts of the festival will offer such renowned musicians as Mstislav Rostropovich, Yuri Bashmet with his Solisty Moskvy chamber orchestra, Borodin Quartet, Viktor Tretyakov, Dora Shwarzberg, Natalia Gutman, and Daniil Kramer.
"Like in previous years, this year's festival has attracted most renowned actors and musicians, and they are all willing to participate," Director of the Nizhny Novgorod's Philharmonic Hall Olga Tomilina, in charge of the festival, told a news conference.
The Sakharov Festival was first arranged in Nizhny Novgorod in 1992 and since then has been held there biannually. The festival has gained not only a nationwide, but also an international reputation: in 1999 it was one of the first Russian festivals admitted into the UNESCO's European Festival Association.
Tomilina said that the festival would as always include special days devoted to the national culture of a European country. "This year we will have 'Days of the Netherlands' Culture.' Arts people from the Netherlands will read lectures and hold master classes and host arts sessions," she also said.
Young musicians from Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod are rehearsing for their Netherlands' music performances at the festival, and the local Arts Museum has prepared the Arts of the Netherlands Exhibition especially for the event. The exhibition will involve masterpieces from the Museum's own collection and is sure to be enormously interesting.
Programs of the festival are all in line with the concept reflected in the name - Russian Art and the World: interaction and arts influence between Russia and foreign countries; prominent pieces of classical and contemporary art; and new art names and trends. The festival will be first-night host to dozens of musical pieces and plays (some will be performed for the first time in Europe and some will have their world's first nights) as well as to famous classic works. Shostakovich's music will be another unbreakable tradition.
Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989) was a top Soviet physicist, political figure, and famous human rights advocate, the Nobel Peace Prize winner of 1975.
