The opening concert featured works by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Dmitry Shostakovich (who lived during the Great Patriotic War) and Rodion Shchedrin. Denis Matsuev, meanwhile, performed Igor Stravinsky’s Capriccio for piano with an orchestra.

Musical events at the festival include a concert in the hero city of Volgograd to mark the Battle of Stalingrad at Mamayev Kurgan; and a concert in the city of Voronezh, where the city defended itself heroically for two hundred and twelve days during World War II.

The Easter Festival’s symphony program will see concerts by the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra under Valery Gergiev with soloists and chorus in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl, Voronezh, Krasnodar, Vladikavkaz and Volgograd presenting a rich and diverse program.

Among the major events in the capital will be a solo concert by Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire on April 5. Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto on April 6 will perform Don Quixote. The chorus of Swedish radio will perform Bach and Brahms, while Jordi Savall will conduct Le Concert des Nations’s on April 7.

In addition, the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St. Petersburg will host one of the leading European cello players, Mario Brunello, who will play with the Dvorak Symphony Orchestra on April 13.

Also the orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre under Valery Gergiev will perform Shostakovich in Moscow and other cities of Russia as the composer’s creativity, according to the maestro, is fully relevant to the dramatic events of 1941-1945.

The last of the musical events in the capital will be the open concert by the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev at Moscow’s Poklonnaya Hill on Victory Day, and the subsequent evening concert at the Central International House of Music.