Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –

The Zaryadye Concert Hall opened in 2018 and has since become one of the favorite cultural spaces, appreciated not only by professionals but also by spectators. It is headed by Ivan Rudin, a pianist and conductor, Honored Artist of Russia, and Artistic Director of the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra. Today, the repertoire of the Zaryadye Concert Hall is quite diverse: Russian and foreign classical music performers perform here, major festivals are held, and educational programs have been developed for the widest audience. Until July 6, everyone can take part in the III Moscow Summer Music Festival Zaryadye, where classical music, jazz, folk, and contemporary works are performed.

A fragment of the conversation – the full version of the interview with “Moscow Culture” is available on video.

— The Zaryadye Concert Hall is one of my favorite places, where everything is thought out to the smallest detail. We are here because the wonderful Ivan Rudin, pianist, teacher, artistic director of the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra and general director of the Zaryadye Hall, kindly invited us.

– Welcome.

– Thank you. I noticed that you don’t really like giving interviews. Did it seem that way to me?

— It’s impossible to say whether I love or not. Rather, I perceive it this way: interviews seem to draw a line under something or some kind of conclusion, and you need to talk about what has been done. I don’t really like to promise — I prefer to do, therefore, not wanting to draw a line, being in such a transitory state, I try to speak publicly only about what really needs to be told, spoken about, discussed.

— If you make regular interviews with us a tradition, we will become part of this transit. And then it will definitely not be scary: we will be in the process and flow all the time.

— I am not afraid of interviews at all. Believe me, artists who have been on stage for decades are familiar with anxiety not as something one-time, but as part of the daily routine. Of course, we learn to control ourselves, as the classic wrote: “Learn to control yourself.” This gives the opportunity to feel quite free in different circumstances, teaches endurance, self-control — this is part of the profession.

— It is not enough for you to be just a great pianist. You became the artistic director of the orchestra, then the conductor and, finally, the general director of the Zaryadye Hall. How do you combine creativity with serious management structures and instruments?

— The best school is life. Therefore, as for management skills, I did not suddenly become the general director of the Zaryadye concert hall one day, just sitting in front of the notes. I have often said that at 17 I organized my own international festival. When I turned 18, in 2000, as a first-year student, I registered the non-profit organization “Ars Longa Charity Fund”. Everything came together due to some inner interest, but I had the opportunity, the head start to master this craft of management and organization over a long period of time.

I came to the Zaryadye Hall when I had already done maybe 50 or even 70 festivals in Russia and abroad. I had significant experience in organizational work in completely different conditions, when you come and organize something in the field. This is what gave me the opportunity to feel comfortable in the management of a truly important cultural institution, one of the most important in the country. And it taught me a lot in terms of musical discipline. Partly, managing the festival led me to dare to become a conductor. Of course, it was a certain challenge.

All together, together – one grows into another. I can’t say that suddenly. Here was a brick, then suddenly there was a pond, after the pond – something else. No, one flowed from the other and became a natural continuation, development, maybe some kind of strengthening. As a result, I feel that music is the center of my life, my interests, and all events, all types of activities that I do, in one way or another serve music.

— Music is a very serious, subtle, concrete language. And people who speak it are noticeably different from others. How do you, the director of a concert hall, a conductor, an artistic director of an orchestra, communicate with those who do not speak the language of music perfectly? After all, this is the majority of the audience.

— As the general director of the Zaryadye Hall, it is very important for me that a new audience comes. And first of all, we are talking about children. That is why we have such a direction as “Zaryadye Hall for Children”.

I perceive my life as a service to art. For an artist, a new audience is any one you enter. Even an audience that has met you dozens of times, you still have to win over.

— Subscriptions are a good sales tool for a person to decide, to commit. And are festivals a management tool or not? Because there is also a composition of concerts, composers, musicians. Is this approach a simplification, a complication? Is there a management technique here?

— I wouldn’t say it’s a simplification. It’s like project work. There are two global projects in the Zaryadye Hall — the summer and winter festivals, they take place at the culmination points of the season. And viewers can choose very different programs to their taste — from baroque to contemporary music, choral, opera, special projects, including, for example, Boris Godunov — a full-fledged opera production for a concert hall. There aren’t many venues in the world and in Russia where such projects are done.

And if we talk about ticket promotion, then since the opening of the hall there has been a system of hashtags, using which a person can collect a subscription within the festival and get a discount on a certain number of concerts.

— Do you think it is necessary to explain music? Lecture-concert, conversation-concert — are very correct and necessary formats, although, of course, not everyone is ready for them.

— As a cultural organizer, I believe that this is necessary, because there may be people who want to learn about the composition itself, and then it will be easier for them to listen. Such excursions are important, necessary and in demand. But we do them not as a lecture-concert, but as a lecture before the concert. Whoever wants and has time can come an hour before the start to the small hall and listen about the work that will be performed: its history, what the composer experienced, what happened to the composition later.

But as a musician, to answer your question, I am very afraid to explain music – not to tell stories around the composition, but to explain. I understand that it is necessary, but for me music is such an intimate feeling that I try not to share it at all. There are some inner things that you cannot tell, otherwise they cease to be intimate. When you say them, they seem to lose importance and meaning in your heart, and you try to find something else that inspires you in the same way.

— Do you have a personal concept of what the Zaryadye Hall should become?

— We started with the fact that I don’t like to give long forecasts and tell what will happen. But, of course, I live with an idea of what the Zaryadye Hall should be like. Our daily work, quite disciplined, leads it in the direction where we, the team, the collective, see the future. After all, in an absolutely amazing way, such a concert hall appeared in the heart of Moscow — one of the best in the world, built in the last 10 years. Of course, as many people as possible should know about what is happening here: the entire spectrum and the entire horizon — from baroque to contemporary music. The Zaryadye Hall should order music and promote, develop this direction as well.

— Do you order?

– Of course. Fresh blood, fresh ideas, new compositions are constantly needed. But no one guarantees that every commissioned work will become a masterpiece like Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.

And returning to what the hall is, it seems to me that its formula was laid down at the very foundation. Our task is to do everything necessary to ensure that the hall is exactly as it was intended. We must extract everything successful from the experience of great predecessors and pass on the entire legacy to the hall so that it lives here. That is why we have summer and winter festivals, a baroque music festival, a Festival Symphony Orchestra, a Festival Baroque Orchestra. This year we will present the Zaryadye Festival Choir at the closing of the summer festival. We are trying to follow a path that should probably take decades, but we want to go through it as quickly as possible.

— I don’t know by what criteria you let different projects in. What should the filter be? This will be good, and this will be bad; we will take this, and not that, because there are reputational risks or it simply doesn’t fit into the image we are painting?

— In recent years, the Zaryadye Hall has begun to do many more of its own projects. This means that we do not simply provide a venue, but form the season as we see it, and act as a customer or an inviting party — hosts who are expecting guests and are very happy to have everyone. Forming a season so that it is not too motley, fitting into some single concept — this is a very fine line. This is the fruit of collective labor, and the most harmful thing that can happen is to usurp it administratively, saying, today they will play Johannes Brahms, tomorrow — Dmitry Shostakovich, then — Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

— When you stand at the conductor’s stand, are you closer to a dictator or are you a soft conductor? How does this happen?

— You know, I am neither soft nor tough. I grew up professionally in such an environment, received a special musical education, which was quite strict, uncompromising in terms of demands on what was happening. We were not accustomed to praising anyone, and I do not accept at all when a person is unable to move forward without a pat on the head. But I am quite demanding, first of all, in relation to myself, and this is what my attitude to the work that comes into contact with me is based on. As for the conductor’s path, when you are on stage at the moment of performance, there is no second opinion. It is completely excluded. If there is a second opinion, please, go study conducting — that’s it, no questions.

— If we look at Moscow as a platform that gives, develops, helps, enters into dialogue, is ready to change, to reconfigure systems, how good is it now from the point of view of classical music?

— You know, I grew up in Moscow, went to school, then to the Moscow State Conservatory named after P.I. Tchaikovsky. And then we all suddenly seemed to find ourselves in another city. On the one hand, there is such a frightening phrase: “Moscow is the best city on Earth,” and on the other hand, Moscow became the result of visionary thinking, and these are not dreams, but what can be built in human society. And what has been done, including the Zaryadye Hall, is difficult to even comprehend, because so much has been done that it takes your breath away.

There is a popular statistic related to the number of music school graduates in prison: their number there is not that great. We like to joke that people who have come into contact with music are like being vaccinated for their future life.

People who are more harmonious may have different interests. And they guide them through life, protect them from mistakes, help them not to stumble. I am not saying that this is exactly so, but I want to believe that music is the most important thing in life, at least for me. It is difficult to imagine how a person could live without music at all, on the other hand, to understand that everything that has been made in the world of music, starting with musical instruments, was also created by man. We had such a need: not only to eat, be warm, get dressed, move from point A to point B, but also to listen to music. I do not know whether beauty will save the world, but music makes people think about the issues without which a person cannot fully exist.

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