The Russian Music Union announced the establishment of the International Award for the Best Audio Recording of Russian Academic Music “Pure Sound”. The press conference dedicated to this event was held on November 15, 2018 as part of IPQuorum.Culture communication platform at the VII St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum.
The speakers at the press conference were Aleksandr Klevitskiy, RMU General Director, composer, Irina Guerasimova, Artistic Director of the Russian State Musical TV and Radio Centre, Dmitriy Sibirtsev, Director of the Novaya Opera Theatre, and Anna Buturlina, jazz singer. Yulian Makarov, presenter of the Rossiya Kultura TV channel, moderated the discussion. Anatoliy Kroll, jazz conductor, composer, pianist, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation, and Vsevolod Zaderatskiy, Doctor of Arts, professor of Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, editor-in-chief of PianoForum magazine, also took part in the discussion.
The organizers highlighted the goals and objectives of the project, talked about how to select the best audio recordings, and presented the jury members and partners of the award.
The management of RMU had been developing the idea of creating an award in the field of sound recording for a long time. The Pure Sound project is based on serious and ambitious goals: to preserve, multiply and develop the best traditions of Russian academic music.
Alexandr Klevitskiy revealed the main idea of the project as follows: “The situation today is such that not so many works by Russian composers are recorded, and even less are published in due quality. This is especially true for the music of modern composers. Therefore, one of our goals is to stimulate the development of the sound recording industry particularly in the field of academic music and to increase the interest of sound engineers in this field.”
Another important task, according to Irina Guerasimova, is to create a heritage that will reach our descendants through sound recording.
Anna Buturlina, who is one of the project managers, spoke about the conditions of participation of recordings in the project and the order of evaluation of the nominees.
The award will take place every two years in several nominations: “Opera”, “Choral Works”, “Chamber Vocal Music”, “Symphonic Music”, “Concert for Solo Instrument and Orchestra”, “Chamber Instrumental Music (Ensemble)”, “Chamber Instrumental Music (Solo)”, “Issue of Archive Audio Recording”.
Phonograms (phonogram albums) of academic musical or musical-dramatic works by Russian composers released not earlier than January 1, 2017 in digital formats (WAV or AIFF) may be nominated for the award.
The voting will take place in two stages, qualifying and final.
The jury of the qualifying stage of the award, which will be headed by composer and musicologist Roman Berchenko, will consist, among others, of: Tamara Brill, Pavel Lavrenkov and Guennadiy Papin, sound directors, as well as Serguey Biryukov, Vladimir Dudin and Ilya Ovchinnikov, music critics.
The jury of the final stage of the award will be headed by composer Alexandr Chaykovskiy. Among the members of the jury are: Mikhail Bryzgalov, General Director of the Russian National Museum of Music, Irina Guerasimova, General Director of the Russian State Musical TV and Radio Centre, Oliver von Dohnányi, Principal Conductor of the Yekaterinburg Opera House, Daniel Kramer, jazz pianist, Martin Maria Krüger, President of the German Music Council, Yulian Makarov, presenter of the Rossiya Kultura TV channel, Yekaterina Mechetina, pianist, Olesya Petrova, opera singer, Dmitriy Sibirtsev, Director of the Novaya Opera Theatre of Moscow, Aleksandr Sokolov, Rector of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
The significance of the award in the field of sound recording for Russian culture was unanimously recognized by all participants of the press conference. The issues of sound industry development in the field of academic music, as well as the topic of promotion of modern Russian composers’ music aroused great interest during the discussion.
Dmitriy Sibirtsev expressed his hope that the Pure Sound award would become one of the leaders in the field of classical music recording.
The period for submission of applications for the award commences on December 1, 2018 and continues until March 31, 2019. The award ceremony for the first winners will take place in the autumn of 2019 in Moscow.
The partners of the project are the National Fund for Support of Rightholders, Orfey Radio Station, European Music Council (EMC), International Music Council (IMC), Rossiya Kultura TV channel, Public Television of Russia TV channel, Kultura newspaper.
Detailed information about the project can be found on the website of the Pure Sound award.