ФЕСТИВАЛЬ  Kurekhin Festival Has Started

On April 13 in the St. Petersburg "Baltic House" the opening of the "St. Petersburg part" of the SKIF (Sergei Kurekhin International Festival), held every year in memory of Sergei Kuryokhin, the extraordinarily talented musician who inspired and created "Pop-Mechanics." Kurekhin tragically died in the summer of 1996 of a very rare disease- heart cancer. It is interesting that the festival itself is take place in two Russian capitals at once: the Moscow SKIF-4 has been held on the territory of the "DOM" club since April 11.
The St. Petersburg festival will go on unit April 17 in the Baltic House with the participation of over 70 bands from countries of the former Soviet Union, Scandinavia, Great Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland, the US, and Australia. Among the "stars" of the festival are minimalist composer Terry Reily (US), the duet including jazz pianist Kate Tippet and British rock-star of the 1960's Julia Tippet (England), the group Faust (Germany), accordionist virtuoso Kimmo Pohjonen (Finland), the trio of the jazz pianist Mikhail Alperin, currently living in Norway, American avant-garde musician Eliot Sharp, the Swedish band lead by Dror Feiler, and the international project of Lars Holmer and Michel Berkmans.

The Sergei Kurekhin International Festival is a forum of "contemporary art, the basis of which is the conceptual premise of a multicultural musical project that was 'Pop-Mechanics,'" a correspondent of the RIA News Agency was told by the organizers of the festival. The first time SKIF was held in New York City in January of 1997, becoming a great success and uniting Russian and American musicians. In May of 1998, New York City was also chosen for SKIF-2: by then it was no longer a Russian-American project, but achieved the status of a large international festival, which included musicians from Europe and Japan. SKIF-3 was held in St. Petersburg in October of 1998. It brought together over 100 musicians from the USA, Great Britain, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Russia. The project also included several dance groups, demonstrated films where Kurekhin participated either as an actor or a composer. There was also an exhibit of photos and posters of "Pop-Mechanics." The festival became an important event not only in the life of St. Petersburg, but for everyone who was lucky enough to attend it. SKIF, according to the words of the organizers, is capable of realizing the most daring project, and the music goes beyond the artificial genre limits often applied to it.

По материалам: www.zvuki.ru