Incubator: Igor Lerman Chamber Orchestra. Incubator:Igor Lerman Chamber Orchestra Lerman Chamber Orchestra

Chamber Orchestra Igor Lerman – Music band from the city of Naberezhnye Chelny. Founder of the orchestra artistic director And chief conductor— Igor Lerman.

The orchestra, then performing under the name "Province", performed its first program on February 25, 1989. Over the past quarter of a century, the ensemble has gained a reputation as one of the best chamber orchestras in the country, whose playing style is distinguished highest craftsmanship, elegance and sophistication musical drawing, full emotional return of the orchestra and conductor.

The repertoire of the chamber orchestra of Igor Lerman is extensive and multifaceted and includes a wide range of music - from works of the Baroque era to the compositions of our contemporaries. A significant part of it is the transcriptions of the artistic director and conductor. The discography of the orchestra includes 15 discs, including works by Corelli, Vivaldi, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Satie, Debussy, Ravel, Bartok, Hindemith, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Schnittke, Piazzolla, as well as transcriptions by Igor Lerman.

The orchestra successfully performs in the cities of Tatarstan and Russia, tours abroad - in the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Israel. On November 23, 2013, as part of the celebration of the 25th anniversary, a concert of the Igor Lerman Chamber Orchestra took place in Great Hall Moscow Conservatory.

In an ensemble with an orchestra in different time performed by Elena Obraztsova, Nikolai Petrov, Boris Berezovsky, Cyprien Katsaris, Viktor Tretyakov, Alexander Knyazev, Moscow Virtuosi chamber orchestra conducted by Vladimir Spivakov and others famous performers and teams.

The reason for the interview was the upcoming Summer Evenings in Yelabuga festival from July 12 to 16, where the main characters will be pianist Boris Berezovsky and the Igor Lerman Chamber Orchestra, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2018.

- Igor, are you a violinist?

Yes, in 1978 he graduated from the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory in the violin class and in 1980 he came to Naberezhnye Chelny, where the School of Arts was opened. When did it open educational institution, teachers were usually given apartments. Yesterday's student to have his own corner seemed a pipe dream, and they really gave me an apartment. Literally from the first days of my stay in Naberezhnye Chelny, I organized a student chamber orchestra, which surpassed the student one in terms of level, was close to a professional one.

- You modestly mentioned Yehudi Menuhin, who…

He invited me to teach at the Yehudi Menuhin School, located in Surrey, an hour from London. After graduating from the conservatory, I worked at music school and a music school, I thought to go on the path of teaching, because my students made great strides. Now everyone is a winner international competitions held in Ufa, Kazan, Ryazan... All winners! And in the 1990s, it was more difficult to achieve the title of laureate. It was necessary to go through a competitive selection, just to be allowed to the first round. For this you need good school. Competitions were held in major European cities and Russian capitals, and even if a person passed only the selection for the competition, he was already rising to a higher level of skill.

I noticed a capable girl and started teaching her from scratch at a music school. At the Yehudi Menuhin International Youth Violin Competition, she passed the competitive selection and three rounds, played with the London Symphony Orchestra, became a laureate, and even won special prize behind best performance Bach. After all, Menuhin was considered a luminary, one of the best interpreters of Bach's compositions, his performance of Bach was considered a reference. After my student won the competition in 1995, Menuhin invited me to teach. Incredible! The teacher and his student from Naberezhnye Chelny successfully compete in Europe with the best violinists of world schools, and not only compete, but also win. Menuhin said: "Change time between Russia and my school." It was the peak of my teaching career. But... I chose the orchestra. Yes, and family circumstances then developed in such a way that I could not leave for England. After that, I put myself entirely on the altar of the orchestra.

- How did it all start?

I created an orchestra from scratch. In Moscow, Petersburg or other major city there is a cultural environment. In Naberezhnye Chelny 30 years ago, she was almost absent. In 1988, the city was a gigantic construction site, where people who arrived from places of detention also worked. Even the city authorities associated the word “chamber” exclusively with a prison cell where criminals are kept: “Can you name the orchestra something else? A small symphony or string orchestra, otherwise a chamber one ... is not good. Musicians know that the concepts chamber music”, “chamber orchestra” really came from the word “camera” - a small room. But in the minds of the authorities, the word "chamber" was associated exclusively with the criminal world! I tirelessly went to the district committee of the party and convinced the chiefs, who were constantly changing, that the city needed an orchestra. And it was established. Many factors influenced, one of them was the time of perestroika, when many things were changing in society...

- Was there an orchestra in the city?

What orchestra?! Graduates of the conservatory could be counted on the fingers! Several music schools School of Music and the management of culture - everything. The creation of the Chamber Orchestra was both a great success and a big problem: who will play? Where to get musicians?

- And where did you get them?

I learned it myself. Almost all the musicians are my students. First, a music school, then a college and the Kazan Conservatory, where I teach. Each took me twenty years! Some, reaching a high professional level, left for the West and settled down perfectly there. The usual story. But when you realize that it takes a third of your life to train one musician, and it turns out that it is not endless! - it is not easy. Now my most faithful students are in the orchestra, we have a team, and they are excellent instrumentalists, which was appreciated by the world-class soloists who play with us.

Igor Lerman with Alexander Knyazev

- Have you also studied conducting yourself?

No, I didn't study conducting. Any professional conductor can say that I have no technique, but I don't call myself a conductor either. I listen to the ensemble and help the musicians play together. Initially, we were called the Province Chamber Orchestra. But... with such a name we were not accepted anywhere: “What kind of orchestra? "Provinces"?! So sit in your province.” The name was forced to change to "Igor Lerman's Chamber Orchestra". I thought it was immodest to put my name in the title, although it was present there initially as the name of the leader. They said: “Few people know Igor Lerman, this is good, but everyone knows what a “province” is - it sounds like anti-advertising.

- They themselves with a complex of provincials!

Yes, and I like the word "province"! There is something sweet, sincere, hospitable in it. I'm provincial and I'm not ashamed of it. I was born on the Kuril Islands, on the island of Kunashir, where my father served after the war. He lived everywhere, wherever he was sent, in the small towns of Ukraine - Poltava, Kremenchug. Indeed, in Russia there are two capitals, the rest is a province. And the mentality of my countrymen is this: “It was in Moscow!!! It was in St. Petersburg!!! So they argue in Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Naberezhnye Chelny...

Muscovites and Petersburgers are no better than the rest - neither smarter nor more talented. It's just that they were born and live in the capitals. It’s not the place that makes the person beautiful, but the other way around, right?

So we want to decorate Yelabuga with a festival. Although the place itself is amazing! The city miraculously retained the appearance of the merchant province of the first half of XIX century. Russians travel abroad, and beauties native land don't know... civil war the locals sided with the whites, so the Soviet authorities gave up on Yelabuga, in the Brezhnev era, construction was not carried out there, thanks to which the city retained its originality! locals turned the city into a museum open sky. Each house is a monument of architecture. Alas, most educated people know Yelabuga only in connection with the terrible death of Marina Tsvetaeva. But this is not only a place of pilgrimage for philologists to her grave! On the banks of the Shishkinskiye Ponds is the estate of the father of the famous Russian artist Ivan Shishkin, who served as the mayor in Yelabuga. The House-Museum of Ivan Shishkin with his rare etchings and the Museum-estate of the cavalry girl Nadezhda Durova are of interest. There are many interesting things in Yelabuga. We will hold the festival on the Shishkinskiye Ponds, blooming in summer. A stage and an amphitheater will be built - spectator rows with a capacity of up to 3,000 seats, covered in case of rain. Yuri Bashmet, Boris Berezovsky, Nikita Borisoglebsky, Alexander Knyazev, Tatyana and Sergey Nikitin will perform - this is a star line-up for Yelabuga!

Yes, not only for Yelabuga ... What is the population there? Hoping to gather 3,000 spectators every night?!

The audience will come from nearby Naberezhnye Chelny, Nizhnekamsk, Almetyevsk. I would like Muscovites and other Russians to make a hajj in Yelabuga, see the city-museum and listen to popular classics. In the future, we hope to cover different types art and make a festival for everyone - lovers of literature, painting, history, architecture. Elabuga in this sense has a huge potential.

Naberezhnye Chelny, Nizhnekamsk, Almetyevsk are cities of workers, builders, steelworkers, metallurgists, oil workers, miners… Are they interested in classical music?

At first, our orchestra had a crazy full house! The city of Naberezhnye Chelny was built not only by workers and builders, but also by those who belong to the engineering corps - the scientific and technical intelligentsia. Muscovites, graduates of the capital's universities, accustomed to civilized life, suddenly found themselves ... in an absolute cultural vacuum. Of course, they had an urgent need to go to concerts. These people became our main audience. Then we began to regularly give free concerts for the workers of KAMAZ in gratitude for the fact that the corporation supports us financially. If not for KAMAZ, the orchestra would not exist long ago! Gradually raised their audience. Now concerts have been attended by several generations: children and even grandchildren of our first listeners. We give Sunday concerts for children and go to the nearest towns, where the audience also comes from. Our Organ Hall in Naberezhnye Chelny has 800 seats, and the audience is waiting for our concerts.

In the Rachmaninov Hall in Moscow

- What repertory policy are you leading? How do you lure the audience into the hall?

The entire repertoire of the chamber orchestra is small: it can be replayed, perhaps, in five years... Mostly baroque music - Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Corelli. Divertimento by Mozart and his "Little Night Serenade", a few works by Haydn and his contemporaries, romantics and contemporary authors. All! What to do if you have been playing for 30 years?.. The repertoire of even the most famous domestic chamber orchestras is narrow: they play the same thing. I decided to expand the repertoire with my own transcriptions. Competing with other chamber orchestras is possible only thanks to a unique repertoire and interpretations. Perhaps my statement is presumptuous, but I dare say that no chamber orchestra in Russia has such a diverse repertoire. I did a huge amount of transcriptions. Created a whole anthology of violin pieces and all iconic works for violin and chamber orchestra. I arranged the piano accompaniments for a string orchestra, which allows me to invite famous violinists. They only say what exactly they would like to perform - "Poem" by Chausson or violin pieces by P.I. Tchaikovsky. By the way, many orchestras play my adaptations of Pyotr Ilyich's pieces, but they rarely indicate this, and sometimes they even pass it off as their own. Once, out of the kindness of my soul, I gave notes, now I don’t do that ...

Igor Lerman with Boris Berezovsky. November 2017

With Boris Berezovsky we played for the first time a transcription of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 for chamber orchestra. Perhaps my version looks like a parody next to Beethoven's original, but... this work allowed me to get to know the great pianist. Then I converted Schubert's Trout Quintet into a miniature symphony for piano and strings. Boris liked it so much that we began to play together regularly. And when I also made an arrangement of the famous Brahms piano quintet op. 34, then the pianist and I began not only a musical, but also a human friendship.

I have prepared transcriptions of many works originally written for pianoforte: for example, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition cycle, which became famous all over the world thanks to Ravel's arrangement for large symphony orchestra. I made a version for chamber orchestra, and it impresses the audience wherever we play.

- So Boris played Pictures at an Exhibition with you in Naberezhnye Chelny in November!

Yes, encore. I say: “Come on, you will play one piece by Mussorgsky on the piano, and the orchestra will play another from this cycle.” And we had a jam session, a performance ping-pong. When courage wakes up in musicians, the audience is delighted! At the Summer Evenings in Yelabuga festival, Berezovsky and I will do the same: he will play piano pieces from the cycle “The Seasons” by P.I. Tchaikovsky, and our team - other pieces of the cycle in my orchestration.

How did you learn to transcribe? At the conservatory? Or life forced?

Rather, the last: I wanted to play a lot! Do not repeat Mozart's divertissements all your life ... Transcription is akin to interpretation, a new reading of the work. I put a piece of my “I” into each transcription. Of course, it is impudence on my part to introduce my own musical text into the works of Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saens, Mussorgsky: who am I, and who are these geniuses?! I try not to violate the composer's intent. The performer, after all, also brings his individuality to the work! In my case, this is not only an interpretation, but also an introduction into the form, a change in the text, where, as it seems to me, it could sound more interesting. Perhaps this is bad taste, but ... that's how I hear it.

Igor Lerman with Elena Obraztsova. November 2017

- Which of the famous soloists performed with your orchestra?

I got great pleasure from working with the violinist Viktor Tretyakov. The brilliant cellist Alexander Knyazev was the soloist with us, who now also performs as an organist. By the way, our Organ Hall hosts concerts twice a month. organ music: guest performers and local organists play. Elena Obraztsova performed with us and spoke enthusiastically about the musicians. My dream came true to play music with Valentin Berlinsky: the legendary cellist and leader of the Borodin Quartet was my idol. Before him, I knew how to play with one soloist - a pianist, violinist, cellist, but how to play with a quartet?! And Berlinsky called the works written for string quartet and chamber orchestra. It would seem that it turns out “butter oil”: a chamber orchestra is the same composition of a string quartet, only increased in number in each group of instruments. It turns out that there is such a genre: members of the quartet play as soloists and sometimes as tutti with an orchestra. Elgar has a marvelous "Introduction and Allegro" for string quartet and orchestra, Lev Knipper has "Radif", an Iranian-style piece for quartet and string orchestra. We performed it with the Borodin Quartet. It was with us that one of recent speeches maestro.

Igor Lerman with Valentin Berlinsky

Gradually, I began to expand this repertoire path: I made an anthology of works for quartet and string orchestra, which is definitely not available in any chamber orchestra in the world! Thanks to this repertoire, I invite quartets: an interesting collaboration has developed with the young David Oistrakh Quartet.

We are friends with Vladimir Spivakov, and the public will remember the joint performance of the Moscow Virtuosos with our orchestra. Of course, then Teodorych reigned on the podium! Spivakov and the Virtuosos will congratulate us on December 5 on our 30th anniversary, and the anniversary concert season we will open on October 8 in Kazan and on October 9 in Naberezhnye Chelny, we will play together with the world famous trumpeter Sergey Nakaryakov.

Photos provided by the press service of the Igor Lerman Chamber Orchestra, Naberezhnye Chelny, Republic of Tatarstan

Igor Lerman, a talented conductor, teacher, music manager and artistic director of the Organ Hall, celebrates his 60th birthday on December 8th. On the eve of the anniversary, we decided to talk about a few little known facts from his biography, which add new touches to the portrait of this outstanding person, thanks to whom in Chelny on big stage classical music sounds. Maestro Igor Lerman surrounded by his daughter Eleonora, granddaughters Sofia and Stephanie.

1. From the characteristics, June 14, 1968: "Lerman Igor, student 8 "B" class of Kremenchug high school No. 20 of the Poltava region, not a Komsomol member. He graduated from the eighth grade with "3" and "4". The character is unbalanced, quick-tempered. He does well in the main subjects, it is easier to learn humanitarian subjects. Interested in literature and music. Systematically participated in school amateur performances. Dreams of going to music school

2. Igor Mikhailovich arrived in Chelny in 1980, and here, eight years later, his dream came true - he created a chamber orchestra. He recalls: “Thanks to Mr. Petrushin, the then mayor. He presses the selector button and, turning to the city's finance minister, says: "Well, give him 25 thousand rubles and let him play in his chamber orchestra." In search of musicians for the orchestra, the city executive committee advertised in the newspaper " Soviet culture", promising them monthly salaries - 175-200 rubles and housing. The first concert of the chamber orchestra took place on February 25, 1989 in the winter garden of the Energetik Palace of Culture. The ticket price was 1 ruble, the entire fee was transferred to the orphanage.

3. With everyone famous artists Igor Mikhailovich always agrees on tours himself. Despite the fact that their tours were scheduled for several years in advance, he managed to invite pianist Nikolai Petrov, violinist Viktor Tretyakov, violist Yuri Bashmet, cellist Alexander Knyazev and the Moscow Virtuosos chamber orchestra conducted by Vladimir Spivakov to Chelny.
“I have been on the stage for 43 years, and this is one of the best orchestras with which I sang,” singer Elena Obraztsova commented on the “Province”. Igor Mikhailovich met her, who arrived by train, in Kazan and in the car of the mayor of the city. On the way we stopped at the "feeding trough" - in the middle of the way. Seeing the singer, the trading aunts began to point in her direction. Suddenly one shouted: “Exemplary!”. And others, interrupting each other: “Exemplary! Exemplary!" One of the drivers pressed the horn. Elena Vasilievna rejoiced like a child: "They still remember."

4. Igor Lerman was repeatedly invited to work in other cities and even countries. The world famous American violinist tried to poach him and public figure Yehudi Menuhin. The musician, who is called the violinist of the era, offered him a job at his school. "Do you agree?" - he asked after the competition, having heard how Lerman's student Zhanna Tonaganyan was playing. Igor Mikhailovich still lives in Chelny. It's been 32 years now.

5. Igor Mikhailovich for all the years of work has not canceled a single concert, in spite of any circumstances. Each performance takes away a lot of emotions from him and physical strength- he is "squeezed out" in literally this word. He takes three shirts to each concert and changes them during the intermission.

6. In addition to directing a chamber orchestra, Igor Mikhailovich teaches at the music school No. 5, the College of Arts and the Kazan Conservatory. Now six of his students are studying at the conservatory - musicians of the "Province". Igor Mikhailovich never grades his students. He has Golden Rule- after the lesson, patiently explain "what is good" and "what is bad."

7. Every year, on May 12, Igor Lerman organizes a concert in the Organ Hall in memory of his father, who died that day, and all veterans of the Great Patriotic War. Mikhail Yurievich was called to the Great Patriotic War from the fourth year of the Kyiv Medical Institute. He served as a military doctor, was awarded two Orders of the Red Star and other awards. Mother Shelya Isaakovna was a housewife. Her son dedicated the CD "Concert in the Shtetl" to her, which included Jewish folk songs and Jewish themes from Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Ahron, Bruch. Opens the "Concert" of her favorite work- "Melody" Gluck.

8. Quite late, at the age of 54, Igor Mikhailovich first got behind the wheel of a car. Despite this, he got used to new role motorist.

9. Maestro Lerman's daughter, Eleonora, graduated from the Kazan Conservatory and plays the violin in a chamber orchestra. She gave her father two granddaughters. The eldest Sophia is already studying in the third grade of Lyceum No. 78. The youngest Stefania was born last year on March 1, the opening day of the Organ Hall. Summer vacation Igor Mikhailovich spends with his granddaughters at sea. He swims great different styles- the hardening received in childhood, which took place on the Dnieper, affects. It swims very far and may not appear for three hours.

10. The hobby of the hero of the day is a bath with a broom on the weekend, free time game with friends in preference and cards. Recently bought an aquarium and breeds fish. He also loves to cook: a signature dish - cottage cheese casserole with dried fruits.