As a part of the Young Conductors project, Ivan Velikanov will visit Krasnoyarsk in February 2020 - the conductor of the Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theatre, the leader of the Tarusa Chamber Orchestra (the band performs ancient music using authentic old instruments). He’s going to present his vision of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake on February 6 and 7, as well as the opera Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini on February 8.

Ivan Velikanov is into the music of various time periods - from the Middle Ages music to the contemporary one. He performs ancient music along with the Tarusa Chamber Orchestra using historical music instruments and conducts performances of classics and works of the 20th-21st century. He’s sure that such universalism is completely fitting: today we can easily become acquainted with the music of different eras, immerse ourselves in any music genre much faster than it was possible even half a century ago.

“Opera and ballet classics are probably the most required layer of classical music, and many musicians who work in repertory theatres perform Swan Lake and Madama Butterfly for more than one hundred times during their lives. It’s extremely difficult in this situation to help the audience gain fresh perception, to breathe new life into the well-known melodies - even though there’s always someone among spectators who hears these music compositions for the first time... And I’m always interested in walking in the shoes of such a “freshman in classics” - to re-hear the ingenious, original music with his ears, to revive what can be considered threadbare by many people. That’s what I hope to be able to do now”, commented Ivan Velikanov.

This is not the first time Ivan Velikanov comes to Krasnoyarsk: he conducted the Snow Maiden opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov during the Stars Parade at the Opera festival in 2018.