Previews

Buena Vista Social Club

The Buena Vista Social Club is a band named after the extremely popular Havana club of the 1940s that served as a gathering place for musicians and dancers as well as a de facto laboratory for blending jazz, mambo, charanga, and other influences to create a unique Cuban style. It was closed down in 1959 following the Cuban Revolution but was resurrected in the 1990s when Cuban guitarist Juan de Marco Gonzales and American guitarist Ry Cooder gathered musicians from the original club to record an eponymous album. Helped by Wim Wenders’ documentary about the reunion of the musicians, The Buena Vista Social Club has won a huge following and become a

Crocus City Hall July 28 19:00

sought-after group at festivals the world over. Another treat for those who plan to attend the event at the Hermitage Garden is the performance of Omara Portuondo, the lady whose beautiful rendition of Hasta Siempre Comandante has become a symbol of love in Latin American culture. Wim Wenders, a famous German director shot a film about the band with a starry performance at Carnegie Hall. Omara Portuondo, who is often called the Cuban Edith Piaf is back in Moscow this July.

Classical photography gallery

The Classical Photography Gallery opened in Moscow this April. The new gallery concentrates on the history of photography. The first exhibition that took place here was dedicated to Ansel Adams and the American school of paysage photography. There is a display of photographic equipment from old times, all still perfectly working. The present exhibition is dedicated to another American photographer—Chistopher Burkett. Burkett is well-known for his amazing landscapes which he finds not only in national parks. A lonely tree abandoned by farmers or whimsical colours of the autumn leaves, becomes a subject for the photographer who loves minimalism in form, but rich colour composition. Burkett uses reversal films which nowadays is a rare thing to do. But as he has been loyal to his Hasselblad camera for about thirty years, and the same is true with the analogue techniques in printing that

June 17-August 14 23, Savvinskaya Embankment, building 1 12.00-20.00, except Monday and Tuesday

he works on constantly. Christopher Burkett was born in 1951 in the Northwest of the USA. In 1975, when he was a brother in a Christian order, he became interested in photography. For Christopher this was a means of expressing the grace and beauty of nature he saw around. In 1979 he left the order to marry, but to continue his studies in photography. He still works with colour 8” x 10” transparencies, makes hand prints and achieves an incredible sharpness and an extremely rich tonality.

Donizetti Masterpieces

Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini: these are the names belonging to the golden trio of Italian composers of bel canto opera, among whom Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti is considered the leader. Arias from his Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) or L’elisir d’amore (1832) are considered to be most recognisable opera pieces. The Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow presents a special programme dedicated exclusively to this great Italian musician’s compositions. The concert is part of the cultural programme of Italian culture in Russia featuring soloists from Italy and Russia. The Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow Philharmony is conducted by a well-known conductor Luciano Acocella, who is always an anticipated guest at festivals in Russia. Luciano Acocella studied piano, composition and conducting at the Conservatory of the Santa Cecilia in Rome, and completed his studies in conducting at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. After winning at the 1996 Prokofiev Conducting Competition and the Mitropoulos Competition for Conductors, he began conducting concerts and opera in Italy, the Netherlands, France, China, Denmark, Japan, Korea, Russia, Poland and Romania. His wife Patrizia Ciofi, an Italian operatic soprano will perform Donizetti arias together with a Russian tenor from Novaya Opera Sergey Romanovsky and an Italian baritone Vincenzo Taormina.

World Press Photo

From June 10 until July 10 the exhibition World Press Photo is again in Moscow. It will later go to the cities of Samara and Kazan. This unique travelling exhibition is showing almost 200 works of the most prestigious photojournalism competition World Press Photo whose 54th finale took place in Amsterdam in February 2011. The exhibition reflects the most important world events of 2010.

World Press Photo has existed since 1955 under the patronage of the Prince of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a unique stage for independent photo journalism and free exchange of information. World Press Photo mostly determines the contemporary situation in the world mass media photography market for journalism among humanitarian organizations, corporations, book publishers and the advertising industry. The international success of this exhibition illustrates the communicative opportunities of photography that overcome political and cultural barriers.

This year World Press Photo will be shown in 100 cities round the world, from Holland to Japan.

Every year the International Independent Jury consisting of photographers and mass media photo editors evaluates the competitors’ works in 9 categories presented by photo journalists, agencies, newspapers and magazines from all over the world. This year members of the jury have looked over a record number of photos: 108,059. 5,691 photographers from 125 countries took part in the competition.

The winner of 2011 in the competition “Photo of the Year” became Jodi Bieber from South Africa. In her photo we see an 18 year old Bibi Aisha from Central Afghanistan. Bibi left the house of her husband to come back to her parents because of her huband’s cruel attitude to her. One night the talibs came to her parents’ home demanding to give Bibi away. They took her to the mountains and cut off her ears and nose. They

World Press Photo 2011 is open from June 10-July 10 in Moscow at Krasny Oktyabr Factory, Chocolate Workshop, Bersenevsky pereulok 2 building 1 Contact information: Ksenya Marennikova, PR-director, 8 903 528 36 11

left her to die in the mountains. However, she was saved and taken to a refuge for women created by the organization, Women for Women in Afghanistan. Bibi was cured and received psychological assistance. They also helped her to move to the USA where she was morally supported and operated on. Now Bibi Aisha lives in the States.

Jodi Bieber got 8 awards in the previous World Press Photo competitions. Her works are presented by Goodman Gallery and the Institute for Artist Management.

The Queen’s English Theatre Studio present

Summer program, July

Lesson, a play by Eugène Ionesco, director Martin Cooke
A Slight Ache, a play by Harold Pinter, director Martin Cooke
The Dumbwaiter, a play by Harold Pinter, director Martin Cooke
Lamia, by John Keats, director Martin Cooke,
Handel, opera, director Neil McGowan Magic Sack, a musical fairy tale, director A. Averianov

Fabio Viale playing with marble at Garage

Fabio Viale is a young Italian sculptor from Turin, Italy. His sculptures are not always conventional, but to an extent he continues the ancient Italian tradition of the great sculptors who worked with Carrara marble. The Pantheon and Trajan’s Column in Rome are made from it. Many Renaissance sculptors, such as Michelangelo’s David were carved using this marble. The Marble Arch in London and the Duomo di Siena are also made from this stone. But in Fabio’s hands this material creates distinct contemporary pieces that speak the language of today with the techniques of the past. For those who can work with marble, they surely know that this material is not easy to handle as it requires both mental and physical efforts by the artist from the minute that the idea is conceived to its realization. The current exhibition at the Garage Contemporary Culture Centre presents the young sculptor’s works in the summer yard, which makes this place look like a real Italian garden.

More than fashion: the Gundlach collection

Franz Christian Gundlach is a German photographer born in 1926 in Heinebach, Germany. He is also a gallery owner, collector and curator of numerous photographic projects all over the world. Since September 2003 he has also been the director of the House of Photography in the Deichtorhallen (a huge art and photography exhibition complex in Hamburg). His own huge collection of fashion photographs from the fifties, sixties and seventies deal repeatedly with social phenomena and new trends in the visual arts. He often exhibits them more for their iconic value than their historical Importance. His collection of photographic works entitled The Image of Man in Photographs is among the most important private collections in Germany and is presented in the exhibition in Moscow. Among the photographers exhibiting in this exhibition are: P. Horst, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Louise Dahl-Wulf, Normann Parkinson, Lilian Bassman, William Klein and David Lachapelle.

Lumiere brothers: early 20th century in photographs

The current exhibition in the Lumiere brothers gallery can be likened to a time journey to old Moscow. More than 300 photographs from as early as the 1900s to the 1960s illustrate Moscow’s past. Here you can glimpse into Muscovites’ lives, architectural views and historical events that radically changed Moscow. For example: the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, installation of red stars on the Kremlin towers instead of the imperial eagles (1935), theatrically staged parades of the 1930s, construction of the All-Union Exhibition Centre (1939), the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) and the Victory parade, the construction of Moscow university and Luzhniki stadium. The curators pay particular attention to the small details of everyday life. Fashionistas in crepe-de-chine dresses, billboards with peculiar notices, children in the Tverskaya street playgrounds. All those epochal moments are presented through the works of the 30 eminent Russian and Soviet photographers. Peter Pavlov, Boris Ignatovich, Naum Granovsky, Victor Akhlamov are acclaimed photographers who worked in photo reportage and with the help of their Leica and Kiev cameras created this photographic encyclopaedia of Moscow.