Days of Boston in St. Petersburg – Spring 2009

Days of Boston in St. Petersburg – Spring 2009

The Educational Bridge Project presents its fifteenth Russian-American Festival, “Days of American Culture in Russia.”  This year’s festival, a Boston-St. Petersburg collaboration focusing on art and education, will take place from May 13 through May 29, 2009, at various venues throughout the city of St. Petersburg.

· The program opens with the Young Composers Exchange, bringing together emerging Russian and American composers through concerts, panel discussions and seminars – a continuation of previous exchanges facilitated by the Educational Bridge Project since 2001 in Boston and since 2003 in St. Petersburg and Moscow.  (Concerts will take place on the 13th of May at 6pm in Sheremetiev Palace, and on the 14th of May at 7pm in the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Discussions will take place on May 14th, 15th, 17th, and 18th from 1-3pm at the Conservatory).

· Festival highlights include readings and Creative Writing Workshops by Daphne Kalotay, American writer and Lecturer in English at Boston University (on May 21st at 4pm there will be a meeting with a group from the Writers Alliance; on May 22nd there will be a meeting with students majoring in journalism from the St. Petersburg University) and a series of Young Actors’ Workshops led by Harvard University Fellow Guila Clara Kessous, French actress, film and theater director and producer. Ms. Kessous will also talk about her work on the human rights movement (on May 26th at 3:30pm at the Theater Academy, and on May 28th at 11:00am at the Theater of Generations).                                            

· In collaboration with young St. Petersburg musicians and Theater Zazerkalie Children’s Studio, recent graduates of Boston University will present several multi-media Concerts with Commentary on the subject of history and its lessons in humanity and tolerance (the time and venues of performance will be updated).

· The central event of the Festival, “Different Trains” – named after American composer Steve Reich’s renowned 1988 composition – will take place in the Hermitage Museum Theater (May 27th, 4 p.m.) Leading up to this event, Boston University professor Ludmilla Leibman will hold a press conference and discussions at the Hermitage Museum Student Club.
     
Since 1997, The Educational Bridge Project has contributed to building humanitarian, political, artistic, and educational bridges between the United States and Russia, through an exchange of lectures, seminars, performances, collaborative concerts and master classes, and concerts by musicians from Boston, St. Petersburg and Moscow. Fourteen past festivals have brought more than 300 musicians, artists and educators together to share ideas, collaborate in performances, and discuss new teaching methods, with thousands of audience members in both countries attending these events. First established under the aegis of Boston University by Boston University alumna and Professor Ludmilla Leibman in 2006, the Educational Bridge Project became an independent not-for-profit organization fostering the exchange of music and musicians between the two countries.

American institutions that have participated in the Educational Bridge Project’s festivals include Boston University, Harvard University, Brandeis University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory, among others. Their Russian counterparts are the St. Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories and Composers’ Associations, the Mariinsky Theater, the Hermitage Museum, the Moscow Cultural Foundation, and numerous other distinguished cultural institutions.  All programs of the Festival are free and open to the public unless noted otherwise. For updated schedule information, the public should visit www.educationalbridgeproject.org and click “Future Plans.”