Yalta is an ancient and beautiful city, so it is no surprise that one of the few classical music festivals that Ukraine hosts is held here, in the best place on the South Coast of Crimea. Academic Music Forum «Stars of the Planet» is organized by the joint efforts of the Russian and national Ministries of Culture, the concert company «Sodruzhestvo», the state enterprise «Ukraine Mystetska» together with the international fund «New Names», as well as the Yalta City Executive Committee.
The base venue for most of the events within the framework of the Yalta musical extravaganza is the Yubileyny Concert Hall, famous for hosting the Crimea Music Fest and the Crimean Zori song festival. The time for the celebration of musical classics is the so-called velvet season — the first week of September, when the bulk of vacationers go home, and in the city remain only lovers of recreation in places with low density of recreationists and delicate connoisseurs of sound harmony.
Given the nature of the festival organizers, the main contingent of participants are Russian and Ukrainian performers, with small inclusions of guests from Europe, USA, Israel and Japan. Not a single season of Planet Stars is without Denis Matsuev, president of the New Names Foundation, as well as those who are sponsored by this charitable organization. For example, laureates of Crescendo and graduates of Denis Leonidovich’s creative school.
In the concert program «Stars of the Planet» in equal proportion sounds music of the Viennese classical school and the classics of the XX century. The former is represented by works by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Vivaldi, Schumann, Handel, Verdi, Beethoven and Strauss. The classics of the past century are presented by Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, the «sacred» Stravinsky and Andrei Petrov. Traditionally, artists of the National Opera of Ukraine and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra are invited to play immortal melodies. Every day the gurus of the genre hold master classes for local musically gifted youth and all comers.
The permanent sponsor of this event is NPAO Massandra. Some tickets are distributed by the organizers among Yalta intellectuals and talented Crimean children. All proceeds from the concerts are sent to charity, mainly for the development of young musical geniuses from Russia and Ukraine.
In the world of glorifying the harmony of sounds, there is no country equal to Austria. The Salzburg Festival, Mozart’s birthplace, and the Bregenz Festival, whose stage floats in the waters of Lake Constance, the Vienna Festival, the Linz Festival and the Schubertiade give no other country a chance at the title of «Queen of Music». But arriving on holiday in Crimea, sometime in early September, you’ll be charmed by the way the «Ninth Symphony» blends with the rustle of the Black Sea waves, and «Sacred Spring» emphasizes the sharpness of the Ai-Petrine yaila. It turns out that even small, and relatively young, music festivals in Yalta, are able to change the qualitative composition of people vacationing in the South Coast, as well as to attract to Crimea wealthy and cultural tourists from abroad.