Media about the Festival

Maria Chamberlain

Head of press-centre, VI Malta International Music Festival

— Two crazy weeks filled with masterpieces performed by the world stars of classical music. Unbelievable atmosphere full of creative communication, new ideas and musical discoveries. Sea, Music, Malta will forever remain synonyms for me.

Lina Goncharskaya

Music critic,

Editor-in-Chief of Culbyt.com

(Israel)

– My impressions from the festival? Lots of positive emotions, definitely more than there is water in the Mediterranean. Here you develop a totally different perception of time. Three weeks of press-conferences, concerts, reviews — it was really great; I do not even know what will happen to us in the now slightly empty reality. I have a feeling that these days something is happening in Malta that used to happen in Paris led by Diaghilev. Because here they have their own Diaghilev, and his ideas are so attractive that he manages to captivate the most significant musicians of our century: iconic composers from Giya Kancheli to Krzysztof Penderecki, iconic pianists from Grigory Sokolov to Nikolai Lugansky, violinists, vocalists, and clarinetists (for example, we can recall Andreas Ottensamer, the principal clarinetist of the Berlin Philharmonic, who looks like a top model and whose mischievous performance concluded the festival).

This year I have been lucky to visit the festival, really unique due to its rich programme. For 18 days every evening there were performances in the historical halls of Valletta and Floriana by the world renowned musicians of different generations: Grigory Sokolov, Maxim Vengerov, Nikolay Lugansky, Denis Kozhukhin, Ray Chen and many others. I am proud to point out my fellow countrymen among them — the cellist Narek Akhnazaryan and the piano trio named after Khachaturian. Every concert was an emotional experience, and some of them got imprinted onto my mind and my soul.

Maybe with a little bit of indiscretion, I express my admiration with the resident of the festival — the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Segey Smbatyan. This orchestra represented our country in the best way and it was so nice to hear enthusiastic reviews about them throughout the whole festival.

I would like to highlight the excellent organization of the days of Armenian culture, during which choir music by the great Komitas was performed for the first time in Malta, as well as chamber music by the living classic, Maestro Tigran Mansuryan.

Music by the resident composer Alexey Shor was especially beautiful. I am leaving the island with his Travel Notebook, which has found its solid place on my “music shelf”.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the European Foundation for Support of Culture and its President Konstantin Ishikhanov for turning the Malta International Music Festival into reality and for the opportunity to cover this large-scale and memorable event.

Claire Jackson

Freelance arts journalist

— I very much enjoyed the level of musicianship on offer at the MIMF and its piano competition, particularly the finals, where the participants were of an unusually high standard. Every concert I attended was thoughtfully programmed, and the soloists were world-class - e.g. Sokolov!

In terms of press organisation, there was some confusion over my accommodation, and on the first day I waited several hours before being able to go to bed. I also had to move rooms at midnight one evening. Lilit and Maria did everything they could to fix the problem and I was very grateful for their support. The interviews were all well organised, as was the transport to the concerts.

Often with such press trips, there is an opportunity to interview cultural figures from the host country, usually organised by the local tourist board. This would have been helpful, particularly given that Valetta is the European Capital of Culture 2018. Otherwise, an excellent event, with wonderful musicians and team.

John Blanch

Director & Founder J. Blanch
productions

— This year festival it was amazing. Such a high level of artists. Being able to interview all musicians about Hhor’s music also help us to understand more about his approach to the music. Looking forward to showing the final results of the film.

Anna Babushyan

Mediamax Company,

Yerevan, Armenia

This year festival it was amazing. Such a high level of artists. Being able to interview all musicians about Hhor’s music also help us to understand more about his approach to the music. Looking forward to showing the final results of the film.

I very much enjoyed the level of musicianship on offer at the MIMF and its piano competition, particularly the finals, where the participants were of an unusually high standard. Every concert I attended was thoughtfully programmed, and the soloists were world-class – e.g. Sokolov!

In terms of press organisation, there was some confusion over my accommodation, and on the first day I waited several hours before being able to go to bed. I also had to move rooms at midnight one evening. Lilit and Maria did everything they could to fix the problem and I was very grateful for their support. The interviews were all well organised, as was the transport to the concerts.

Often with such press trips, there is an opportunity to interview cultural figures from the host country, usually organised by the local tourist board. This would have been helpful, particularly given that Valetta is the European Capital of Culture 2018.

Otherwise, an excellent event, with wonderful musicians and team.

Yossi Tavor

journalist, music critic, Radio Orpheus host

— This festival combined two concepts. On the one hand, really great names: four great violinists of different generations –- Aiman Mussakhajayeva, Maxim Vengerov, Ray Chen, Salvatore Accardo; outstanding pianists of different generations – Nikolai Lugansky, Denis Kozhukhin and, of course, the unique pianist Grigory Sokolov. If you add to these three bright new stars –Narek Hakhnazaryan, Anreas Ottensamer and David-Aaron Carpenter – you will get an insight what is happening at concert halls all over the world!

On the other hand, music compositions were performed, which could not have existed without a festival format: concerts where music of two Titans of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries  – Giya Kancheli and Krzysztof Penderecki – was performed in the presence of them both. The Days of Armenian Culture, where together with famous Armenian composers of the twentieth century we listened to the marvelous music by Komitas performed by the Maltese choir; it was very interesting, because people, who do not know the language, were singing very harmoniously and beautifully. This can happen only at festivals, along with the joint concert of the Maltese and Armenian orchestras and the premiere performance of the symphonic cycle about the Great Siege of Malta by the resident composer of the festival Alexey Shor. For this, credit undoubtedly goes to Maestro Sergey Smbatyan.

Here I come to another festival phenomenon – performance of music by Alexey Shor. We have seen again that one needs to be very thoughtful and serious towards music of this composer, revealing hidden associated feelings in it. Sometimes it seems to a performer that in front of him there is a quite simple musical text that can be performed almost at sight. In fact it turned out to be what Salvatore Accardo spoke about: only when he heard accompaniment by the orchestra, he realized what the meaning of the Flight of a Falcon was. I myself extremely enjoyed performance of Alexey Shor’s music by Khachaturian Trio. They demonstrated how touching this music is and how it describes those events the composer speaks about. Look carefully, Shor has a lot of visual images: it can be a battle, a sea, his travel diary; he always needs a visual picture to create a music composition. This is Shor’s creed, his alter ego. Why? Because he thinks mathematically, he needs some formula to transfer art into a different dimension. In this case visual dimension should be transformed into audio dimension.

My eternal gratitude goes to the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Sergey Smbatyan. They both undertook what seems an impossible task to play every day with new programmes, different soloists, and absolutely unfamiliar music. They accomplished this task excellently. We can say with certainty that Sergey Smbatyan and his musicians have a great future. Sergey Smbatyan has done tremendously impressive work.

It is worth highlighting one more event: the Malta International Piano Competition was held these days; about seventy people arrived in Malta, thirty-nine of them played in the second round, and only six took part in the finals. The strongest was selected out of these six – Anna Ulaieva – I hope, we will hear her name again. It seems this competition has serious prospects. Anyway, its finalists received a chance to perform on the big concert stage.

I think, both the festival and the piano competition have been a success!