"Symphony of Light" by Alexander Pokidchenko

To the 150th anniversary of the birth of A.N. Scriabin. "Symphony of Light". Solo performance by Alexander Pokidchenko

This is a unique project at the intersection of the genres of declamation and music and Alexander Pokidchenko's personal vision based on poems, letters and essays by Konstantin Balmont (1867-1942).

Program:

Composition by A. Pokidchenko based on poems, prose, letters and essays by K. Balmont.

Music by D. Buxtehude, D. Milhaud, E. Satie, A. Scriabin, S. Rachmaninov, P. Tchaikovsky.

"I'm interested in how Balmont hears the world - penetratingly, pushing the boundaries of acoustic space. This is the macrothinking of a modern person!" - Alexander Pokidchenko says about his project, which has already managed to win the love of the audience at the Moscow Autumn International Festival.

“At the centre of the performance is the personality of the Poet, who over the years is moving away from lightness, from a kind of “pop culture”, which he sometimes joined, as a darling of poetic fashion. And there is a tragedy of Balmont's departure in the arrhythmia of endless longing, having lost his homeland and his own poetic mainstream.

“I would never have thought before that I would come to a performance based on Balmont, that pretentious and narcissistic poet, whose poems I knew from colmpilations where his “best” is collected. But I unexpectedly found a book about him, which was captivating and amazingly talented. That was the autobiographical novel Under the New Sickle, published in Berlin in 1924. And it shows another Balmont, completely different. “I will return to much that makes up the real me, to that for which you fell in love with me,” he wrote in 1914 to his wife. And it did happen. Always running, he stopped and "unfolded", getting over himself.

Of course, all the vain and shallow features did not suddenly disappear from his character. But it retreated when in 1920 Balmont was forced to leave Russia forever. Incredible melancholy, alienation, pain break through the dam of former beautiful words in full voice. After that, as Saltykov-Shchedrin aptly noted, “...physics triumphs; light bodies rise up; dense and weighty bodies remain in the lowlands.” And, moving away from a kind of “pop culture”, with which Balmont sometimes compromised as a darling of poetic fashion, he inevitably enters into more complex relationships with time and people. This performance lived and changed with me."

Alexander Pokidchenko is the Merited Artist of Russia, composer and pianist, member of the Union of Composers of Russia. He graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory as a composer.

Among Pokidchenko's works are the dramatic scene "Labyrinth" based on the tragedy of M. Tsvetaeva, "Ariadne" for soloists, organ and symphony orchestra, musicals "Lady

Akulina", "The Snow Maiden School", "The Snow Queen. Global Warming", music for the fairy tales "A Winter Night's Dream", "Lukomorye", "Fairy Tale City", chamber compositions, songs and romances. He is also the author of solo performances based on the works by A. Pushkin, K. Balmont, N. Gumilyov, R. Schumann, G. Foret and S. Frank.

He is the author, host and performer of concert programs dedicated to

outstanding masters of Russian song: A. Tsfasman, O. Feltsman, Y. Frenkel, A. Ostrovsky, E. Krylatov, E. Kolmanovsky, Y. Saulsky, I. Shaferan, E. Yevtushenko.

Alexander Pokidchenko is the winner of the International Pop Song contest in Varna, Bulgaria (2005).

Artistic Director of the Ensemble "Creative Commonwealth of Musicians".

Participant of the Cultural Program of the Olympic Games

in Beijing 2008, Vancouver 2010, London 2012, Sochi 2014

Guest teacher of the Bolshoi Theatre Youth Opera Program.

From 2007 to 2016 he had been holding the position of a leading teacher and accompanist of the World of Art Charitable Foundation.

Since 2006 Alexander Pokidchenko has been a leading teacher and accompanist of the White Steamboat Foundation.