“Cherry Forest”: Marina Zudina with children, Alika Smekhova and other guests of the concert of Nikolai Lugansky

The reason for the capital’s stars to reappear in public last Friday was the solo concert of Nikolai Lugansky. The performance dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sergei Rachmaninoff was held at the Moscow Philharmonic. And his guests were old friends of the Cherry Forest – Andrey and Daria Zlatopolsky, Marina Zudina with their children – Maria and Pavel Tabakov, Yulia Bordovskikh, Alika Smekhova, Kamil Larin, Valery Syutkin’s wife Viola and many others.

Nikolai Lugansky, one of the world’s most sought-after Russian pianists, is known as an outstanding interpreter of Rachmaninov’s piano music. He has been playing the composer’s works since the age of 9; they occupy a special place in the life of a musician and make up a significant part of his repertoire.

Note that Nikolai Lugansky – one of the most sought-after Russian pianists in the world and a participant in major festivals in La Roque d’Anthéron, Colmar, Montpellier and Nantes (France), the Ruhr and Schleswig-Holstein (Germany), Verbier and Gstaad (Switzerland), Salzburg and Grafenegg ( Austria). Lugansky is best known for his outstanding interpretations of Rachmaninov’s piano music. He has been playing the composer’s works since the age of 9, they occupy a special place in the musician’s life and make up a significant part of his repertoire.

Rachmaninov’s piano music is a whole world, very different: it can be both a breath of wind and the flow of a river. And most importantly, it contains the strongest human feelings: the birth of passion, love, sometimes even hatred. These states, with the exception of a few of the greatest poems, become in words “unpretentious“but they are unusually accurately expressed in his music,” says Lugansky.

In his solo program, the pianist reflected a large-scale retrospective of Rachmaninov’s piano heritage, covering more than thirty years of his work.