Editor's Choice
By Marina Sinitsyna
Christmas at the Kremlin
 If you’ve always associated the Kremlin with politics and machinations, then Misha Rachlevsky and his Chamber Orchestra Kremlin will offer you something completely different. For the eleventh year in a row they are inviting first-class musicians from various countries, and have chosen wonderful music for a series of concerts held in the very heart of the Kremlin - the Armoury and the Patriarch’s Palace. Most of the guest musicians will be performing in Moscow for the first time: Sylvia Thereza, pianist from Brazil; Linde Brunmayr-Tutz, flautist from Austria; Argentine-Swiss bandoneonist Marcello Nisinman, being just a few examples.
The festival will feature the work of Arvydas Malcys, laureate of the Composers’ Competition ‘Mozart-250,’ held in Moscow in 2006; the orchestra will be performing his In Memoriam.
Editor’s comment: Look for the famous faces in the audience.
December 13 through January 26
Kremlin, the Armoury and the Patriarch’s Palace
Yevgeny Pluschenko in the Show on Ice
 Figure skating has never suffered from a lack of popularity in Russia, but this year the interest towards this elegant sport was boosted by a series of TV shows; ‘Artists on Ice’ being one of them. Thanks to the many Russian stars of figure skating, you can enjoy a magnificent show on ice on New Year’s Eve. The great Yevgeny Pluschenko, who is as much an actor as a sportsman, will be skating, together with Irina Slutskaya, Tatyana Totmyanina and Maksim Marinin.
Editor’s comment: The press release has it right: a combination of “ice and flame.”
December 31, 18:00
Luzhniki Sport Complex
Bugs Bunny on Ice Around the World in 80 Minutes
 Let us introduce you to the Phileas Fogg and Passepartout of the 20th century – Bugs Bunny, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety, Daffy Duck, Speedy Gonzales and their other Looney Tunes friends. They are going on a journey which will to rival the original one, both in time and the amount of places visited. They will take the young audience to countries like Mexico, Australia, India, Brazil and even Russia itself. Wherever the characters go, they explore the local dances, music and costumes. The famous Londoner and his French companion will join the intrepid travellers as well, and will follow them to the culmination of the trip – meeting Father Frost and Snegurochka on Red Square itself.
Editors comment: Ask the children if you can go with them…
December 27, 18:00 December 28, 14:00 and 17:00 December 29, 12:00 and 15:00
Shakatak (UK)
 Mixing and matching is the essence of their existence and their work. It all started at the end of the 1970s with a unique combination of two quite desperate, unsuccessful bands – ‘Tracks’ and ‘Northern Lights’. Their first track Steppin was distributed through a music store “Record Shack”, and when Polydor Records offered the newly-born band a recording contract, the musicians decided to express their gratitude to the store through using part of its name. The word ‘attack’ was added just for fun and thus the name ‘Shakatak’ emerged.
Then they started mixing music styles – funk, pop, jazz, and rock. Their debut album ‘Driving Hard’ became an underground hit of the emerging British jazz-funk scene. Their next album, ‘Night Birds’ became a gold one and remained in the charts for twenty-eight weeks. Shakatak combined their recording activity with extensive touring and in 1982 alone gave a total of 132 concerts. To this day Shakatak is busy releasing albums and touring the world, keeping their music diverse and up-to-date.
Editor’s comment: A blast from the past.
December 15 and 16, 19:00
Moscow International Performing Arts Centre December 30, 11 :00 and 14:00
Luzhniki Sport Complex
24 Luzhnetskaya Nab.,
M. Sportivnaya
788-4646
Anastasia Volochkova ‘I Don’t Regret Anything’
 Some people praise her talent, others say that she has no talent whatsoever; everybody reads and savours all the scandalous details about her professional and private life. Whatever the truth, she is popular. Here, she is presenting another solo concert with the title, ‘I Don’t Regret Anything.’
The programme will include nineteen numbers from both the classical and contemporary repertoire; the latter set to the music of Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour.
Volochkova will be performing by herself, and with the Bolshoi soloists Mark Peretokin and Rinat Arifulin. For the first time in Moscow Volochkova will present three new compositions - Chopin Spring, Bizet Carmen, with choreography by Edvald Smirnov, and also Nino Rota’s Sicilian.
Editor’s comments: She’s a star.
December 2 and 3, 19:00
Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre
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