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Contest Announced for Participation of Young Performers at the Bolshoi Festival of Classical Music

May 24, 2016

The festival is traditionally staged in the folk village of Drvengrad in Serbia, under the leadership of the world-renowned film director Emir Kusturica and with the support of Gazprom Neft. Applications to participate in the contest may be submitted by all students of music schools and academies in Serbia and the Republic of Srpska, while the contest will be organized in two age groups: from 13 to 17 and from 18 to 25. In three-day contest, 100 musicians from Serbia, Republic of Srpska and Russia will compete in performing classical works of Russian and Serbian composers. The musical programme of the festival includes competitive and non-competitive performances of the participants, as well as concerts of the world-famous stars of classical music. This year, there will be master courses organized at the festival under the management of the violinist Nemanja Radulović, tenor Zoran Todorovića and cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan. For more information about the rules for participation in the contest, visit the official Facebook page of the festival www.facebook.com/boljsojfestival/. The Bolshoi Festival of Russian music under the leadership of film director Emir Kusturica has been organized in Drvengrad (Srbija) since 2013. Gazprom Neft is the general sponsor of the festival. The basic idea of the festival is to support young talents from music schools and academies in Serbia and the Republic of Srpska, as well as from different regions of Russia. Every year, the Bolshoi Festival gathers an audience of around five thousand people. The list of artists who performed at the festival in Drvengrad includes famous Russian and Serbian musicians: Denis Matsuev, Yuri Rozum, Nemanja Radulović, Alena Baeva. Drvengrad stands at the altitude of 1600 meters, on the mountain of Zlatibor (national part of Mokra Gora) in Serbia, representing a unique architectural project of Emir Kusturica. Drvengrad was constructed for the needs of filming Emir Kusturica's "Life is a Miracle", near the narrow-gauge railway which used to connect Belgrade and Dubrovnik. The main segment features Nikola Tesla Square whose central structure is the Church of Saint Sava, while the settlement includes around 50 houses in total. All streets and structures have been given names of famous people: Novak Đokovic Street, Maradona Street, the Stanley Kurbrick Cinema, Nikita Mikhalkov Square, the House of Dostoevsky, etc.